More people and organisations trust Cambridge’s English exams and tests than those offered by anyone else – they have been taken over 100 million times, and over 28,000 organisations globally accept them.
IELTS: A benchmark for English proficiency
We are one of the forces behind IELTS, which students use to prove their proficiency in English as part of their university admission process. In 2025, the trustworthiness and reliability of IELTS assessments were backed up by independently published and peer-reviewed research.
Better student outcomes with established tests
The research revealed that international students who take high-quality, established English tests like IELTS, in a human-proctored test centre environment, are more likely to thrive at university and achieve better long-term academic performance.
Among the English tests reviewed in the study, IELTS was the best predictor of performance for university students. Universities using established tests saw better student retention rates, fewer dropouts and found their students were more likely to complete their courses.
“Robust language testing is about much more than meeting the minimum requirements for education or work. It’s about enabling people to thrive. Quality and humanity matter when it comes to language learning and proficiency tests.”
Pamela Baxter, Chief Product Officer, English, writing in the Financial Times
Online-only tests are not setting students up to succeed
The ELT Journal-published study, conducted by our researchers, as well as researchers at the Universities of Dundee and Cambridge, and the British Council, was based on research at 50 UK universities and a survey of 67 higher education professionals. International students now represent over 23 percent of the UK’s university population.
While established tests such as IELTS continue to set the benchmark for trust and transparency, the findings also highlight concerns over the reliability of newer online-only and at-home English language proficiency tests.
Universities using less established tests found that students who had taken these tests were less prepared for studying in English-speaking academic environments, were more prone to academic misconduct, and had more challenges with academic and social integration.
Many universities have since stopped accepting online-only English tests, amid reports that they have enabled fraud in the UK. Elsewhere, students have been paying proxies to sit online exams remotely. Online, videos explaining how to cheat on some of the newer tests have become ubiquitous.
Cambridge’s ‘human-first’ approach
Our approach, by contrast, is to grow long-term trust in our assessments by combining human oversight with technological innovation.
We have been using and experimenting with AI for decades, but we are a human-first organisation, rather than AI-first. Our approach maintains the human element in assessment, which is a critical trust factor, providing security, integrity and reliability, alongside the positive benefits that come from using AI tools.
AI-first approaches can disrupt English proficiency testing for international students, with evidence showing that international students who have only sat short online English tests struggle with academic life, relative to their peers who have passed more rigorous assessments.
© Cambridge University Press & Assessment, 2025