English 4 Skills Test

The Versant English 4 Skills Assessment Test

The Versant English 4 Skills assessment test is useful in measuring proficiency in reading, writing, speaking and listening.

The 4 Skills test evaluates a candidate’s aptitude for productive language skills such as speaking and writing, as well as receptive skills of listening and reading. Analyzing these skills provides comprehensive scoring of a candidate’s language proficiency levels.

Why Choose Versant?

Accurate

With a 0.97 correlation, Versant test scores generated by the Ordinate testing system are virtually indistinguishable from expert human scoring, ensuring confidence in the results.

Reliable

The Versant English 4 Skills Test is highly reliable (split-half reliability of 0.97), delivering more consistent testing without the variability typical of multiple evaluators and locations.

Fast

Versant is fully automated and can be easily taken over a phone or computer by large groups of test-takers. A detailed score report is available minutes after the test is completed.

What We Test

Speaking

Candidates respond to different questions from their computer or phone, which allows us to evaluate each test taker’s fluency, pronunciation, sentence mastery and vocabulary skills, carefully measuring their language proficiency levels.

Writing

Applicants respond to questions and provide written responses, enabling us to evaluate each individual candidate’s organization, grammar, vocabulary, voice, and tone. At one point, applicants read a description of a situation, and need to write an email addressing the issues described in the situation

Reading

Test takers have 30 seconds to read a paragraph, which then disappears. They then have 90 seconds to reconstruct the paragraph in their own words. Their performance on this section feeds is reflected in the grammar and reading comprehension scores.

Listening

The candidate will listen to a series of short stories, then retell the stories, in English, using their own words. In addition, they’ll listen to a series of questions during the “Short Answer Questions” section, and are then requested provide a simple response.

Versant English 4 Skills Test Features

Purpose

Screening applicants or new hires
Assessing existing employees’ English abilities

Duration of Test

~30 Minutes

Number of Questions

70 Questions

Question Types

Repeats
Sentence Builds
Conversations
Sentence Completion
Dictation
Passage Reconstruction

Score

Precise score in the range of 20 to 80
Diagnostic sub scores in sentence mastery, vocabulary, fluency, and pronunciation
Detailed explanation of language capabilities
Suggestions for improvement
Score mapping to GSE and CEFR

Test Security

Secure capture and storage of candidate responses
Anonymous test ID numbers to ensure data privacy

Validity and Reliability

Versant has been extensively field tested and evaluated to verify its validity and reliability.

Conventional Tests vs Versant English 4 Skills Test

Conventional Tests

Versant English 4 Skills Test

Questionable consistency

Proven reliability

Limited times, locations

Anytime and anywhere

Results in days or weeks

Results in minutes

Complicated test

Easy administration portal

High cost

Cost effective