Standardized Exams Are Fossils. So What’s the Real Test of English?

By Paul Ponce

"Look up! Is that a meteor crashing down?"

No idea—but somebody has to say it, so it may as well be me.

IELTS and TOEFL are not tests of real English mastery. Never were. They’re gatekeeping relics. A measure of how well some poor soul can regurgitate grammar rules most native speakers couldn’t name if their life depended on it, along with other manufactured nonsense.

In the age of AI, training humans to act like grammar-parsing machines is a weird flex. Fill-in-the-blank drills. Reading passages that double as sleep aids. Robotic essay templates. Speaking prompts so fake they should come with a disclaimer. Vocabulary lists harvested from dusty 19th-century texts. This is how we decide if someone’s ready for college, a visa, or a career? Seriously?

Here’s the blunt truth: the real acid test of advanced English communication can’t live in a multiple-choice bubble. It can’t be graded by a machine because it’s built on what makes us human.

The real test has always been — and will always be — the ability to communicate in a meaningful way. It has a name. Storytelling.

Can you explain an idea so someone actually cares? Can you turn complexity into clarity and move people to action? That’s what employers hire for. That’s what investors respond to or moves people to believe in your cause. That’s what leaders need. Not whether you can label a clause correctly.

Look, I get it. If you work inside the ESL industry, calling the exams into question is career-risk territory. The system funds a lot of paychecks. But I’ve seen the fallout firsthand: students psychologically scarred by fear-based testing regimes, brilliant people who avoid public speaking for years because an exam (and the international exams cartel who created it) told them they weren’t “good enough.” That’s not education. That’s harm. I’m calling it.

Now—let’s be fair. At early stages, some grammar and vocab drilling helps. If it’s balanced with meaningful, comprehensible input: real stories, real conversations, authentic material. Remember when you were two and your mom handed you a conjugation chart with your cookies? Exactly. You learned your first language by listening, and later reading, copying, messing up, and using it in context. Second language works the same way.

But at TOEFL/IELTS level? When learners are expected to operate at near-professional fluency? The evaluation should be far more authentic—and honest. The exams? They fall flat.

Want to actually master English? Stop obsessing over test tricks. Start doing the work that matters: consume and practice stories. Watch TED Talks. Listen to podcasts. Read fiction. Tell your own stories. Then do it all over again. And tell somebody about it. Practice clarity, structure, emotional resonance, and persuasive delivery. These are the human skills machines can’t fake.

And yes — the irony: getting excellent at storytelling will also help you game the exams if you must. Your essays will flow. Your speaking will pop. Your vocab will grow exponentially. You’ll handle curveballs without panicking. But instead of walking away with a number—and an anxiety disorder—you walk away with something that lasts.

I’ve been in the trenches of ESL and in the boardrooms of business. I’ve had to help people unlearn fear drilled into them by the outdated standardized exams industrial complex. It hits close to home. One day maybe the industry will wake up—adopt Sir Ken Robinson's paradigm shift, admit that Dr. Stephen Krashen was right all along about acquisition—and stop worshipping a broken metric.

Until then: I’m calling a spade a spade. I’m calling BS on the fossilized model.

Facts don’t move people. Stories do.

Facts don’t move people. Stories do.