Hacker News Reader

Comment by lawless123 | Hacker News Reader

Seems a bit mad to make a private company the gatekeeper.

I have no idea why this news is titled "Computer says no". For the speaking part it's humans evaluating the results. That said you are right on point about private company being the gatekeeper.

IELTS raised the fees more than 300% in the last few years. They now cost around $330 per exam and they always invariably fail you the first time around. You are allowed to take as many tests as you need. Conveniently you pass after a few tries.

I know competent English teachers who grew up in Australia failing this test few times. And equally I know very few migrants from third world countries passing the test even if English is their first language.

It's more of a blatant money making scheme than anything else and quite obviously the department of immigration must charge IELTS for allowing it to be one of the English examiner.

Just follow the money and you have all the answers.

> For the speaking part it's humans evaluating the results

That's not what I understood from the article, which says

"uses voice recognition technology to test speaking ability, with audio recordings then marked by a “scoring engine”"

"Other test providers have said they use human assessors to determine if people are competent speakers of English"

Both of those imply there aren't humans evaluating the results at this test provider.

That's the entire point of the article.

> it is the only one that uses voice recognition technology to test speaking ability

> Other test providers have said they use human assessors

No, the article clearly states that the test in question used voice recognition on a computer. Other companies use human evaluations, however this one didn't.

This is what I disagreed with. Afaik, everything else is marked by computers but voice was always handled by humans.

Unless this is something very recent in which case I am not sure how computers can handle accents or ambiguous words. Even google's voice to text has so many errors on untrained voice models

We took the test in high school (NL). From what I remember it's all about the preparation. They must be completely standardised and have no room for debate, due to the nature of the test. This means you invariably get extremely idiosyncratic question styles and formulations, a sort of secret code you have to see through to get to the meat of the question. It's standardisation on steroids. I remember thinking I wouldn't have passed a Dutch version of this test without prep.

We got very thorough, specialised prep from our teachers. Everyone passed , first try.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no.

"Computer says 'no'" is a reference to Little Britain e.g. https://youtu.be/AJQ3TM-p2QI

That kind of thing is unfortunately the norm here in the UK too.

Could you explain that ?

The UK citizenship authority accepts most major accredited english language certifications and or a university degree as proof of english language proficiency. The only tests are for lay of the land/law/society, not language proficiency.

> "The only tests are for lay of the land/law/society, not language proficiency."

Not sure what your sources are, but as part of UK Citizen application, you absolutely have to do English language proficiency tests in some circumstances. The Pearson test is one of the recognised tests.

I said that they accept a very wide range of certifications and you can pretty much select the one that suits you, this is my source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-apply...

In addition to my self having gone through the Citizenship process recently. Additionally several native nationalities have an exception: https://www.gov.uk/english-language/exemptions

I thought it was clear (since I quoted it) that I was responding to the claim that there are no English language proficiency tests as part of the UK Citizenship tests as not being correct. In some circumstances there are (e.g. Your degree is not in English and you are not from a recognized English speaking country). Not sure what is contentious about that statement of fact?

I believe cannonpr meant that no English language proficiency tests were required to be taken as part of the citizenship tests, as they accept a large number of qualifications (and thus only need to take the test if you do not hold one of these qualifications). So while you might have to take a test, it is separate from the UK citizenship tests.

For immigration purposes you will definitely need to do an English language test. A lot of these tests, language and otherwise, are actually done at private companies. As long as they are accredited with the government they can administer it.

I once heard of an American who's degree from Princeton didn't count, because the certificate was in Latin.

I meant important public services being farmed out to incompetent private suppliers is the norm.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com