The basic change is in the testing philosophy of the old and the new pattern.
The CBT tests the ability of the test taker through questions on grammar and
language usage whereas the iBT uses a more direct approach to achieve the same.
The iBT tests the ability of a test taker to deal with the day-to-day
situations. It therefore aims at testing the test taker’s comfort in using
English while communicating in the real world and not academic excellence in
English as a subject per se. Keeping this in mind the exam now looks at all
aspects of using a language ,viz., Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking.
The CBT did not have a section on speaking and neither did it include the
concept of testing the application of multiple skills simultaneously. These
tasks (the ones that require the test taker to use multiple skills
simultaneously) are known as ‘integrated tasks’. In the old pattern of TOEFL®
test there were only three sections - Reading, Writing, and Listening. However
the new TOEFL® iBT includes a section on Speaking as well.
The TOEFL® iBT is a linear, as opposed to an adaptive test. This
means that the levels of difficulty of the question do not vary as per the
abilities of the test taker. Examples of a computer adaptive test would be the
GRE® and the GMAT® where the difficulty level of the test
varies as per the ability of the test taker as the test proceeds.
Top