Our results

IELTS

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is a wide-spectrum test with a score range of 1 to 9. It is used for many purposes, but Churchill House students take the test mainly for university or college entrance purposes. Typical scores required range from 4.5 for a vocational or degree foundation course, 5.5 - 6.5 for a first degree course (depending on the course and university) and up to 7 - 8 for a master's degree course.

Some students take a test at an earlier stage of their learning as a practice exam or at the request of a sponsor.

The following table shows the students taking the exam in 2011 in the various score ranges achieved. 2011 figures are also given.

TOEIC

Churchill House is an accredited test centre for the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication). This is a test of business English widely used in the Far East and, more recently, in Europe and especially in France. Like IELTS, TOEIC is a wide-spectrum test with no pass or fail. Scores are reported in the range 10 to 990.

The following table compares the student’s most recent TOEIC score before arrival to the scores achieved after an average of 6 weeks study at Churchill House.

Trinity GESE Test in Spoken English

We also prepare students for the Trinity Graded Examinations in Spoken English (GESE). The test can be taken at various levels.

In 2011 we had a 100% success rate. All students passed the examination at the level for which they were entered. The results are shown below by level.

Cambridge ESOL - FCE and CAE

Students who pass the exam are awarded a Grade of A, B or C as appropriate. Students who narrowly fail allocated a grade corresponding to a level in the Council of Europe classification, B1 for FCE or B2 for CAE. Grade F denotes a clear fail (the codes for fail grades changed in 2011 and grades for previous years are expressed in 2011 terms).

The following is a summary of our results at FCE and CAE for the last three years:

Table A (below) shows our official/recommended entries for the UCLES main exam suite. Table B shows the total number of students entered. This total includes a small number of students in each session whom we would not normally have recommended to take the exam at that time; e.g. students whose sponsors wanted them to be entered even when advised by us that they were not ready, students who were not of a level high enough to pass the exam but who simply wanted to try it for the experience and finally those students who, while not yet ready, were thought to be sufficiently motivated and hard-working to benefit from the more structured environment of an exam class.