Summary

The British Council and the National Education Examinations Authority under the Chinese Ministry of Education have recently completed research linking the IELTS examinations to China's Standards of English Language Ability (CSE), which were introduced in February 2018. This is the first time that an international examination has been officially mapped against CSE.

The CSE scale aims to create a framework to better compare results from the large number of different language assessments offered in China - it is not an examination itself. The scale has nine levels in total, with levels 7, 8 and 9 classed as "advanced", levels 4, 5 and 6 as "intermediate", and levels 1, 2 and 3 as "elementary".

According to the results of the research an overall IELTS score of 4.5 would put a student at level 4 of the CSE standards, while a score of 5.5 corresponds to level 5. IELTS scores of 6, 7 or 8 correspond to the same level on the CSE scale. Component scores can be slightly above or below this, for example a student with a score of 5.0 on the IELTS listening component would be at level 4 on the CSE framework for this skill.

CSE level

Total IELTS score

IELTS listening score

IELTS reading score

IELTS speaking score

IELTS writing score

4

4.5

5

4.5

5

4

5

5.5

6

5.5

5.5

5

6

6

6.5

6

6

6

7

7

7.5

7

6.5

7

8

8

8.5

7.5

7

7.5

The research also mapped the British Council's Aptis test to the new standards; the results of this mapping can be found in the link below.

Sources

1. British Council – Results of Linking IELTS and Aptis to China’s Standards of English Language Ability: https://www.britishcouncil.cn/en/exams/cse/results

2. Ministry of Education / National Language Commission (China) - China’s Standards of English Language Ability (English version): http://cse.neea.edu.cn/res/ceedu/1811/6bdc26c323d188948fca8048833f151a.pdf

3. British Council International Education Services – China issues new criteria to measure English competency (April 2018): https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/news/market-news/china-issues-new-criteria-measure-english-competency