Who knew these 3 test-taking stresses were avoidable?

Needless to say, tests can be stressful. Add foreign languages in the mix, and the stakes are raised even higher. In fact, test anxiety is a form of performance anxiety that should be taken seriously — although some studies have shown that a little bit of stress can be beneficial , in the worst of cases, test-caused stress can negatively affect test-takers’ results and thus carry repercussions on their career and academic potential. When it comes to the curriculum experts that create standardized exams, however, it is assumed that tests are inherently stressful, and little can be done to avoid this universal truth.

And if we told you that these stress-inducing factors could be avoided…? It would start a revolution. Less stress, more success.

We’ll show you how to effectively bust this myth by outlining three common test-taker stressors :

Surely, it’s stressful to find time in our day-to-day work life to take a multiple-hour long exam. Particularly when taking a test requires missing a half-day of work. Traditional tests were designed with the philosophy that effective and thorough evaluation necessitates large quantities of questions, test sections, and allotted test-taking time. But what if exams didn’t have to be so time-consuming? It may be hard to believe, but exams can properly measure competences in an efficient manner. When the test questions are designed to directly evaluate skills (and not just abstract theoretical concepts), there is no need to spend several hours in an exam room.

With this issue in mind, we created Pipplet with the mission to provide language evaluations that involve no headaches or significant time commitments.The online test is completed in thirty minutes max, with no appointment required. No more getting stuck in traffic and arriving late to the testing location; test-takers have the liberty to take the test when they feel ready and comfortable.

Of course, correct grammar is essential when mastering a foreign language, but it’s not the only significant language skill. Certain candidates can excel in a traditional language test that covers grammar, spelling, and fill-in-the-blank sentences, but struggle when faced with a speaking task or in conversational interactions. Tests should therefore focus on real practical competencies. Students and test-takers can rest assured that their skills will speak for themselves, without the need to answer questions about the three different forms of the subjunctive tense. If you are well prepared and can communicate well in the given language, there should be no need to stress.

At Pipplet, we avoid testing methods that try to trick or down-talk to candidates. The test’s scenario-based questions directly measure what the test-taker can and can’t accomplish when it comes to real business-oriented language tasks. Challenging, stimulating and engaging…just the opposite of traditional language tests offered today.

In an increasingly high-tech world, it’s incredible that we continue to rely on multiple-choice exam formats. So old-school! Filling in ovals on an answer sheet or a computer screen can be confusing, tiring for the eyes, and can lead to careless bubbling mistakes- definitely not ideal when test-taker success is the goal! Additionally, the multiple-choice question format doesn’t necessarily provide a clear understanding of a test-taker’s language potential; using the ‘process of elimination’ method in MCQ involves less expertise and mastery than the successful answering of a free-response question. Finally, because there is usually only one correct answer, multiple-choice questions are restricting to test-takers. A free-response oral or written format allows the candidate to show off their skills with all the knowledge and competencies at their disposition.

All in all, it’s about time that standardized tests get a makeover and understand that it is possible to create an exam that is simultaneously beneficial to the test-giver and test-taker. Professionals that create today’s tests do ultimately want test-takers to succeed, but more remains to be done in order to eliminate the stressful aspects of these exams. In this way, more time can be spent on effectively preparing for the test and its content, and less on worrying over multiple-choice answering sheets and long commutes to test-taking sites.