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TOEFL vs IELTS? Students pursuing Masters in the USA often have to decide whether they should opt for TOEFL or IELTS. Since I have experience with both of them, I will highlight the differences between the two.
TOEFL stands for Test Of English as a Foreign Language. ETS is responsible for TOEFL. IELTS stands for The International English Language Testing System. It is a joint venture between the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and Cambridge Assessment English. Both tests are designed to measure one’s proficiency in the English language.
First the similarities: Both offer Paper-based and computer-delivered exams. The tests are valid for 2 years and both cost around 200 USD. They consist of four sections reading, listening, writing and speaking.
People who are looking to immigrate to countries like UK, Canada, Australia have to opt for IELTS. Students pursuing masters in countries like the USA can opt for either IELTS or TOEFL as universities usually accept both.
TOEFL has more testing centers than IELTS. TOEFL has about 4500 testing centers worldwide whereas IELTS has only 900. I have heard people complain that IELTS results are declared very late. So if your application deadline is fast approaching you might want to research more on this.
IELTS has two types of tests – academic and general. Academic is for students and general is for immigration purposes. There is no such differentiation in TOEFL.
IELTS is about 2 hours 45 minutes long whereas TOEFL is 4 hours long.
IELTS results are declared a band between 0-9 whereas TOEFL gives you a score out of 120.
For IELTS you will have a separate speaking section, which you can schedule on the same day as your other sections or up to 7 days before and after you give the other 3 sections. One more thing to note about the speaking section is that for the TOEFL speaking section, all candidates in the exam room speak simultaneously because everyone usually attempts the speaking section at the same time. This creates a distraction when speaking. In IELTS, you speak only in front of the examiner in a quiet place which creates less distraction. IBut then again some people are more comfortable speaking to a computer than to a real human being.
IELTS listening & reading questions come in a lot of variety. There will be sentence completion, matching headings, true-false, flowcharts, diagrams, table completion etc. You will have to write down actual words as answers for most questions as opposed to multiple choice questions. TOEFL will mostly have multiple choice questions. For IELTS listening questions you have to write down the answers as the speaker speaks whereas in TOEFL you answer after the conversation you are listening to ends.
IELTS writing section may again consist of diagrams, charts & letters. TOEFL writing section involves writing essays on the topic presented.
If you are presented with a choice, make sure you research enough before making a decision as both tests are very much different. Opting for a particular test is a purely personal choice. Hope this article helps answer the age-old TOEFL vs IELTS question.
Further reading:
https://magoosh.com/toefl/2013/toefl-vs-ielts/
