CELPIP VS IELTS COMPARISION

[cal0308]

Hi everyone,

just wanted to share my personal experience with CELPIP.

I took the test last July 27 and received my scores on August 9. I was able to get 12 in Reading and Listening and 10 in Writing but I got an 8 in Speaking.

I appealed for reconsideration and my Speaking score jumped up to 11! So for those who have concerns over their writing and speaking scores, you should definitely have them reevaluated.

In terms of comparing CELPIP with IELTS, I went with CELPIP because the test only takes one day (IELTS usually has a separate day for the speaking portion), and it's a bit cheaper. But if I could choose, I would go for IELTS as the CELPIP speaking portion may throw off some people.

 

[TeeJ]

Hi everyone,

just wanted to share my personal experience with CELPIP.

I took the test last July 27 and received my scores on August 9. I was able to get 12 in Reading and Listening and 10 in Writing but I got an 8 in Speaking.

I appealed for reconsideration and my Speaking score jumped up to 11! So for those who have concerns over their writing and speaking scores, you should definitely have them reevaluated.

In terms of comparing CELPIP with IELTS, I went with CELPIP because the test only takes one day (IELTS usually has a separate day for the speaking portion), and it's a bit cheaper. But if I could choose, I would go for IELTS as the CELPIP speaking portion may throw off some people.

Congratulations on a successful re-evaluation! I was so happy to read your post because I am in the same boat and there are so many negative reports here. I have hope now. I would like to know how long the re-evaluation took, if you don’t mind.

 

[cal0308]

Congratulations on a successful re-evaluation! I was so happy to read your post because I am in the same boat and there are so many negative reports here. I have hope now. I would like to know how long the re-evaluation took, if you don’t mind.

Thank you! I re-applied for an evaluation on August 9 and received my new score on August 21. They said it normally takes about 2-3 weeks so I was surprised that I received mine so quickly. They'll send you an email once they finish evaluating your scores. And yes, don't lose hope and consider all your options!

 

[TeeJ]

Thank you! I re-applied for an evaluation on August 9 and received my new score on August 21. They said it normally takes about 2-3 weeks so I was surprised that I received mine so quickly. They'll send you an email once they finish evaluating your scores. And yes, don't lose hope and consider all your options!

Fingers crossed, I’ll have your good luck too and get it back soon so I can stop worrying about it. I got L:12, R:12, W:8 & S:11. I really don’t want to rewrite this. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Shail321]

I have given IELTS twice and both the times i have only lagged in WRITING. I have received 6.5, ir-respective how many times i write and improve.
I believe, the folks are into money making business.

I also saw the examinor giving 8.5 in speaking but, eventually landed up with 8.
looks extremely fishy.

Is CELPIP any better than this ? Hoping its computerised and it should have less malpractices than IDP IELTS !

 

[Amrit9291]

I wanted to improve my writing and speaking for ielts. I cannot join any institute as I dont have time, working full time.

 

[TeeJ]

I have given IELTS twice and both the times i have only lagged in WRITING. I have received 6.5, ir-respective how many times i write and improve.
I believe, the folks are into money making business.

I also saw the examinor giving 8.5 in speaking but, eventually landed up with 8.
looks extremely fishy.

Is CELPIP any better than this ? Hoping its computerised and it should have less malpractices than IDP IELTS !

CELPIP writing and speaking are also graded subjectively. You type and speak into a computer but the computer doesn’t grade you, a person does. I have never written IELTS so I can’t compare the two exams. I felt that the CELPIP grading was biased and if I had to rewrite I don’t think I’d rewrite CELPIP but by all means give it a try. Everyone’s experience is different

 

[kamran.shekh]

Hmm. It’s hard to say whether Celpip is biased or not, but a lot of people think this way.

I think that I could have done better in the speaking part of it, but maybe didn’t because of the computer style of conversation, which is kinda weird. Other thing that really bothered me was that I had to watch my volume of speaking in order to not distract my neighbours attention.

I am going to give Celpip another try and if it doesn’t work, a little more writing practice for Ielts before taking it again.

Hello rclmont! Were you able to reach CLB 9 in either CELPIP or IELTS later on?

 

[Silve Oxy]

For those of you wondering whether to take CELPIP or IELTS, I would strongly suggest taking the IELTS. Unless you're a native speaker, it is very hard for you to get good scores in Speaking and probably writing as well. On the other hand, if you're really good at speaking and writing modules, CELPIP reading and listening are straightforward and easier than IELTS (Atleast in my experience). Moreover, CELPIP test dates are easily available, whereas for IELTS, you may have to book 3-4 months in advance to find a spot.

Preparation:
I didn't prepare for listening or reading at all and for speaking and listening I used the "Test Expert by Christian Lee", these can be purchased on amazon. I highly recommend his books for anyone preparing CELPIP.

Here are my scores:
CELPIP 1st Attempt:
L-11, R-9, W-8 (!), S - 7 (!)

CELPIP 2nd attempt:
L-12, R-12, W-8(!), S - 8 (!)

Criteria:
You will need 9+ in all modules in CELPIP and if you're taking IELTS, you will need 8+ in Listening and 7+ in S, R, W.

For IELTS, I didn't prepare much at all, probably around half a day on how to tackle writing task 2 and took some tips from a friend about the format. (Thanks buddy)

L-8.5, R-7, W-7.5, S - 8.5 ----Overall : 8.0

I could have done better in reading, however, I took a 5 minute rest room break and didn't have enough time to tackle the 2 page reading paragraph well.

Anyway, good luck everybody, happy to talk to you and share my learnings or answer any questions you may have.

Thanks for sharing your experience ,maybe you can give me some advice.

I have taken IELTS 3 times so far , scoring 7.5 to 8.5 in all modules exept for writing always 6 to 6.5. I have taken two courses on udemy , studied from different websites and books, yet my writting score has been always below 7. what is your advice for me

Thanks in forward,

 

[tinu28111987]

Hey guys,
I just read all the comments in this thread and it was all very informative.

A quick question. Everyone says CELPIP speaking is difficult. What is it's format?
In IELTS, it usually lasts up to 15 min and has 3 sections i.e. introduction, speaking on given topic and 2-3 general questions on the same topic.

How is CELPIP different than this? Is their vocab difficult or questions?

Thanks.
Regards,
Hetal

 

[pritu76]

I also took IELTS twice, stuck on writing 6.5. (R-8.5,S-7.5,W6.5, L-8)

I am about to CELPIP as dates as easily available and writing is computer-based, Now reading about all the negative feedback for CELPIP I am not sure if I want to take CELPIP. In my area, there are no available IELTS dates for the next 4 months.

I am now confused about the next steps.

 

[puzokumar]

Thanks for sharing your experience, maybe you can give me some advice.

I have taken IELTS 3 times so far, scoring 7.5 to 8.5 in all modules except for writing always 6 to 6.5. I have taken two courses on udemy, studied from different websites and books, yet my writing score has been always below 7. what is your advice for me

Thanks in forward,

Hi @Silve Oxy - I was in a similar situation. the only way to get higher scores in Writing is preparing from Band 9 essays and getting the fundamentals of writing format correct. We have to be absolutely sure and stick to one format.

I wish I had known this before, but during the 3rd time prep, I registered on e2Ielts prep. The trial was good enough to give me enough tips and points on where I was going wrong. It is also well known that most people get dismal scores in only writing while they have perfect 9's in the rest of them.

When practising essay writing - I would first write it down on paper and then use a computer and rewrite it on Grammarly exactly word for word.

This would tell me where I am going wrong and how very often. Again Grammarly is free and comes in handy to identify those pesky little mistakes we make that we are not aware of, or it's our second nature.

96% of the application and its features are free and if you can afford you can get the premium version but I wouldn't suggest as we don't want you to get used to the computer autocorrection that we totally depend on it.

the 3rd time I succeeded and got & got 7 in writing. Good Riddance !!

 

[raj2017]

anyone is considering computer based ielts exam? i think it would be easier for ppl like me who has difficulty in scoring in writing part, if anyone can share their experience

 

[stels17]

I want to thank everybody for sharing their experience here...
I am one of that vast group of people who struggle with IELTS writing. My first IELTS was Academic, back in 2016. The scores were L7 R8 W6 S7. I didn't prepare for the writing that much as I thought it wasn't gonna be that difficult compared to the speaking - how wrong was i! Second time was in the spring of 2018, General, L8 R8 W6.5 S7 - despite that I'd been preparing for the writing specifically since October. Another attempt was in December, 2018 (after extensive preparations and practice...) - L9 (haven't thought it would ever be possible) R8.5 W6.5 S6.5. Enquiry on results (W, S) - W - unchanged, S - 7. The average band was 8 - the most helpless 8 in the world. And the final (currently) attempt brought L7.5 (Australian accent + a lot of 'no more than 2 / 3 words') R9 W6.5 S7.5, of course i'm not gonna initiate an enquiry.
So, CELPIP might be a solution, I thought. However, based on the comments, it's not likely(( Very disappointing. In IELTS they wouldn't normally mark your writing above 6.5, whereas in the speaking they're not that harsh. On the contrary, in CELPIP they've chosen an alternative manner which is not grading higher than 8 in the speaking...
Since CELPIP is only available quite far from where i live and has that issue with speaking, I will be trying IELTS again and again probably, hoping for a miracle
@puzokumar's story is encouraging though... Makes me think i havent tried hard enough

 

[baxa1981]

Anyone thinking of retaking celpip, try to answer based on the format of the questions.

Each question is testing for something specifically. Describe what happened is testing how you use past tenses Describe a thing - adjectives etc.

What we usually do is try to answer the questions as fast as possible using as simple a language as possible. This is a big mistake!

Try this and let's see if it works. I took IELTS because I couldn't figure out celpip. Now I feel like this should work for speaking part.

I still don't know about writing The tasks are pretty simple, yet they give really low marks.