For many students, whether to choose IELTS or TOEFL, especially the two successive reforms, first IELTS opened a single retest, and then there was a major overhaul of the TOEFL test, changed back and forth, everyone was completely dizzy, what is the difficulty after the reform, who is easier to get points?
IELTS/TOEFL ultra-detailed comparison
Cut-off score comparison table
The official website of ETS has given a comparison of TOEFL and IELTS scores:
As can be seen from the IELTS TOEFL score conversion table, the level of IELTS 7 is equivalent to the TOEFL score of 94-101, so it seems that the score level is comparable.
However, due to the narrower IELTS score area compared to TOEFL, there may be slight differences in the control scores.
New York University requires a TOEFL score of 102 or above, or IELTS 7.5, Cornell University requires a TOEFL score of 100 and an IELTS minimum of 7.5, and Columbia University requires a TOEFL score of 105 or IELTS of 7.5......
IELTS at the University of Oxford is 7.0 with no band less than 6.5, TOEFL is 100 overall, with no band less than 22 in listening, 24 in reading, 25 in speaking, and 24 in writing.
The average IELTS score of 7.0 in UK universities is 100 in TOEFL.
Universities in different countries tend to choose different language tests as a reference for the language level of international students. It is evident that American universities require slightly higher IELTS scores than TOEFL, while UK universities require slightly higher TOEFL scores than IELTS.
Comparison of IELTS/TOEFL single subject difficulty
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TOEFL and IELTS both have four parts of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and Mr. Ji Yu will analyze these four parts for you:
1. Reading section:
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IELTS Reading is divided into three sections, each of which is a long passage. There are many types of questions, not only multiple-choice questions, but also fill-in-the-blank questions, matching questions, etc.
IELTS has a unique question type that is true or false. In addition to right and wrong, there is also the option Not Given. The form of the article includes descriptive words and words that express facts, as well as their extension and analysis, which pay more attention to details, and find correspondence for each option in multiple-choice questions, which is relatively high in time cost.
After the TOEFL reading reform, only two articles need to be read, and most of the content is academic articles, including biology, history, astronomy, geography and other topics.
Overall, an IELTS reading score of 7 is a bit more difficult than a TOEFL score of 25.
2. Listening section
With the newly reformed TOEFL, the core position of hearing remains the same! However, because the listening part takes less time, it is expected that everyone will have a better experience of the test.
In terms of content, the future TOEFL listening content is likely to be the same as before, biased towards academics.
IELTS listening is more life-oriented, such as asking for directions, making phone calls, remembering phone numbers, names and addresses, renting a house, etc. However, IELTS listening questions will be a bit "winding", such as multiple-choice questions, and the individual words of the three options may be mentioned in the recording, if you do not listen to the whole sentence or do not understand the whole sentence, you may choose the wrong one.
The IELTS question type is closer to testing whether the student has the basic ability to survive, and the TOEFL is obviously to test whether the student can understand the academic lectures, and the difficulty is naturally an order of magnitude greater than that of IELTS listening.
3. Speaking part
IELTS Speaking is divided into 3 parts, Part 1 tests basic expression, Part 2 tests monologue, and Part 3 tests dialectical thinking, but there is an examiner who communicates face-to-face from beginning to end.
The newly reformed TOEFL speaking is unchanged. There are still 4 tasks, the whole process is said to the computer, without the guidance of the examiner, TOEFL Task1 is similar to Part1 in IELTS, Task2 is similar to Part3 in IELTS, but from Task3, the difficulty is escalated, not only to test your speaking, but also to test your reading, listening and comprehension and generalization skills, which is not bad in any aspect.
Therefore, in the speaking test, if you look at the test format, if you are not suitable for students who are not suitable for everyone to talk, you may feel that IELTS is more difficult, but from the perspective of the number of tasks or the dimension of comprehensive examination, TOEFL is more difficult than IELTS.
4. Writing section
After the TOEFL adjustment, the length of the test has been shortened from 50 minutes to 29 minutes, and the new Academic Discussion question type has been added, which no longer requires a large amount of arguments to support one's own opinions, and does not need to use a large number of words and sentences to express and elaborate. However, the new question type requires students to improve their ability to read and comprehend quickly, and they need to select content and opinions that are not given in the materials for the topic, and at the same time integrate and evaluate the opinions of others and use them for their own positions.
In addition, due to the lack of a large number of real questions for candidates to practice, the difficulty of preparing for the TOEFL writing test will increase.
IELTS writing is divided into large essays and small essays, but the topics are much more academic than TOEFL, and the requirements for logic and content are also higher. The style of writing is also rigorous and professional, and it is best not to have any abbreviations and colloquial expressions.
Compared with the "academic" TOEFL materials, the content of the IELTS test is mostly related to life and study, and many vocabulary words are accumulated on a daily basis, and it is easier to get started when you really review. Therefore, if you don't go abroad, if you choose IELTS in China, it will be more life-like and easy to use.
To sum up
TOEFL and IELTS tests actually have their own difficulties, the TOEFL test is difficult to get started, and it is relatively easy to improve the score in the later stage after mastering the characteristics of the test and training in a targeted manner. IELTS is easy to get started, and the higher the score, the more difficult it becomes, especially the overall score of 7.5 and above, and the speaking and writing score of 7 and above!
When it comes to choosing whether to take the TOEFL or IELTS test, it is important to clarify the following 2 points:
1. The main direction of study, the total score and sub-score requirements of the target school, your own strengths and weaknesses, such as listening ability, word ability, test status, etc.
2. Timeliness, if you are particularly anxious to get a score, taking the TOEFL test will save time than IELTS.