TSE (Test of Spoken English)

I am guessing that, with the advent of TOEFL iBT, TSE has become obsolete in many areas; so not many people nowadays know what it is. As its full name shows, this is a test of spoken English, and because this is somewhat a strange test, and also different from the speaking component in the recent TOEFL iBT, I will introduce how it is conducted as I took this test twice before coming to the US.

This test takes only 20-30 minutes, yet you need to pay $120 or so (I don't remember exactly how much it was). Until TOEFL started to incorporate the speaking skill, international students who were seeking a TAship often needed to take this test (or SPEAK test).

This test is conducted via land phone. The man over the phone explains how to take the test, but it is a taped message. Still from time to time, he demands that I need to respond saying "yes" or something else to make sure that I understand him and follows his direction. Then, as the test begins, he reads out a prompt, which is also written in the test booklet. As he finished reading out the prompt, you hear a beep sound. Then, you begin to speak for 1-2 minutes. While you are talking, your voice will be recorded, but no one replies or even backchannels. So you just keep talking, or making a speech. In this regard, this is not a conversation, but like talking to yourself. Then, suddenly you hear another beep sound. Then, the recorder stops, you must stop talking regardless of where in a sentence you are at in order to listen to his instruction. You can use your watch to check the time, so it is possible to finish your speech in due time, though. I believe there were about 10 questions in total with a variety of topics. So you just talk about them on the phone with no one to reply.

When I took this test for the first time, I did not study for it at all, not because I was confident, but because I wanted to experience how the test goes as no one that I knew knew how this test went as none of them had taken it. So I took it just to familiarize myself with it; then, I can better prepare for it next time. Despite my low-expectation, I got a score high enough to attend a graduate school in the US.

But as my TOEFL score was low, this score was expired; so I took it one more time. This time, I exactly knew how this was, so I spent a lot of time to practice for this test. And because this was not a conversation test, it was easy to prepare for it because all I needed to do was to memorize some patters that I could use in each type of question. Once I memorize the patterns, I just needed to change some words and phrases, and it made a complete sentence. So I took the test with confidence. I am sure I was more accurate and fluent than the first time. To my surprise, however, the score stayed the same. I was still happy because it was again high enough to use for my application, but I wondered why it did not improve. So I did a little research on it, and found out that if I use a pre-formed phrases, it tends to give me a lower score. So this may have been the reason. But I think it difficult to judge which phrase was pre-made which one was not.

My understanding is that this test is rated by two human raters, not computerized yet. And if there is a lot of discrepancies between the two, the third human rater will evaluate it. However, it may have been changed by now.

Personally, I would prefer a conversation-type test as it is quite difficult, even in my native language, to keep talking for a minute or two right after you see the topic to talk about (although you are given 30 seconds or 1 minute to think of and organize what to talk about). Also, due to the strict time constraint, I felt a lot of pressure and stress. But no test is perfect, and as I know I don't need to take it any more, I am happy to recall this experience.