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Practical thinking on advanced English, exam preparation and teaching, written for learners and teachers interested in language, learning and effective practice.

2 articles in this selection

IELTS or Cambridge: Which Certificate Lasts Longer?

Vladimir Pavlovich

Whenever students ask me whether they should take IELTS or a Cambridge exam, sooner or later we arrive at the question of validity. “How long does the certificate last?” The answer most people know is simple: IELTS – two years; Cambridge – forever. Technically, this is true. It is also somewhat misleading. Cambridge English certificates do not expire. If you passed C2 Proficiency in 2016, you are still perfectly entitled to say that you passed it in 2016. The certificate remains valid as a qualification and records the level you demonstrated when you took the exam.

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How Cambridge Kills Flexibility

Vladimir Pavlovich

For years, Cambridge exams have been regarded as the gold standard of language assessment. They were believed to foster creativity, encourage the natural use of English, and promote genuine language development. Compared with other CEFR-based examinations, such as IELTS or TOEFL, Cambridge stood apart by avoiding overly straightforward tasks in favour of more demanding ones that scrutinised learners' communicative competence through the lens of the CEFR can-do statements. This philosophy gave rise to tasks such as Key Word Transformations, Gapped Texts, Cross-text Matching, and many others that have since become synonymous with Cambridge examinations.

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