Established 1994 · Accredited by the International Assessment Council
CELP reports listening, reading, writing and speaking on one published nine-band scale. Universities, employers, professional registration bodies and immigration authorities in more than one hundred countries accept the result without further assessment.
CELP
Certified English Language Proficiency
Test Report Form
FORM CELP/TRF/4 · Academic
Candidate
PRIYA N. RAMANATHAN
Date of birth
14 MAR 2001
Test date
16 May 2026
Centre
ONLINE
Valid until
16 May 2028
Module band scores
Listening
8.5
Reading
8.0
Writing
7.5
Speaking
8.5
Overall band score
Mean of the four modules, rounded to the nearest half band
8.0
Specimen.Verification number resolves in theverification portalbelow.
Accepted by 11,400 organisations, including
Test format
Listening, reading and writing are taken consecutively with no break between them. The speaking interview is held on the same day or within seven days of it, at the centre's discretion.
Order of the sitting
0 h 28 min total
Reading 5 · Listening 3 · Writing 15 · Speaking 5 (minutes)
One short authentic text — a notice, a leaflet, a set of terms — with the passage on screen throughout.
Five short recordings — a voicemail, a station announcement, a workplace message — each played once only.
One functional task with a stated reader and purpose, of at least 120 words, written under a live word counter.
Three spoken prompts, each with short preparation, recorded automatically and marked by an examiner.
The Academic and General Training papers share the same listening and speaking modules. Reading and writing differ: Academic draws on published research and professional reporting, General Training on workplace and everyday material.
Why CELP
The board publishes its band descriptors, examiner certification standards and centre inspection reports in full. Every claim below is auditable against them.
Scores are accepted by universities, professional registration bodies, employers and immigration authorities across more than one hundred jurisdictions.
11,400+
Recognising organisations
Reading and Listening are marked the moment you submit. Writing and Speaking are marked by an examiner, and the Test Report Form is normally published within three working days of the test.
3 days
Standard issue period
Every sitting is invigilated from the moment it begins. Irregularities are recorded against the attempt and reviewed before any result is issued; confirmed malpractice voids the attempt.
740
Sittings invigilated
Writing and speaking are marked independently by two certified examiners against published band descriptors, with routine third-marker audit.
2 + 1
Examiners per script
How it works
There is no sitting to book and no centre to travel to. The examination runs in your own browser, whenever you choose to take it, under the same conditions for every candidate.
Enter your name, email and telephone number. No booking, no seat to reserve, no fourteen-day deadline. One attempt per email address.
About two minutes
The portal checks your browser, camera and microphone before it lets you begin, and tells you what to fix if something is wrong.
On screen, before the timer
Four timed sections, one after another, in fullscreen under automated invigilation. Each section closes on its own clock, or sooner if you finish early.
28 minutes in total
Reading and Listening are marked the moment you submit. Writing and Speaking are marked by an examiner, then your Test Report Form is published and emailed to you.
Within three working days
What you need
A mobile phone will run the examination but makes the writing task considerably harder. If you need an adjustment for a disability or a medical condition, arrange it before you register — see the accessibility statement.
The same four sections and timings, with different questions. Reading and Listening are marked so you can see where you stand. Nothing is kept, and it does not use up your entry.
The band scale
Each of the four sections is reported as its own band, and the four are combined into an overall band. The scale does not move between sittings, so a band earned today means what a band earned last year meant.
| Band | Descriptor | |
|---|---|---|
| 9Expert user | Full operational command. Accurate, fluent and complete understanding.Exceeds every published requirement | Exceeds every published requirement |
| 8Very good user | Fully operational command with only occasional unsystematic inaccuracy.Professional registration, competitive postgraduate entry | Professional registration, competitive postgraduate entry |
| 7Good user | Operational command, with occasional inaccuracy in unfamiliar situations.Postgraduate study, skilled employment | Postgraduate study, skilled employment |
| 6Competent user | Effective command despite some inaccuracy. Handles complex language in familiar situations.Undergraduate study, most graduate employment | Undergraduate study, most graduate employment |
| 5Modest user | Partial command. Copes with overall meaning in most situations, though errors are likely.Foundation and pre-sessional programmes | Foundation and pre-sessional programmes |
| 4Limited user | Competence confined to familiar situations. Frequent problems with complex language.Below most published requirements | Below most published requirements |
| 3 and belowExtremely limited to non-user | Conveys and understands only general meaning, or no ability beyond isolated words.Further study recommended before re-entry | Further study recommended before re-entry |
The mean of the four section bands, rounded to the nearest half band. A mean of 6.25 is reported as 6.5; a mean of 6.75 is reported as 7. Sections are never weighted against each other.
The column above is indicative only. Every university, employer and registration body sets its own requirement, often with a minimum in individual sections — check theirs before you enter.
Reading and Listening are marked against a fixed key. Writing and Speaking are marked by a certified examiner working from these descriptors, with a proportion of scripts second-marked blind. If you believe a band is wrong, it can be re-examined — enquiry on results.
Results & verification
A Test Report Form is a record in the board's register, not a piece of paper. Receiving organisations should confirm a score against the register rather than accept a document at face value.
Test taken
Written scripts are scanned at the centre and released to marking the same evening. The speaking interview is uploaded as an audio record.
Marked and moderated
Two certified examiners mark writing and speaking independently. Any script whose marks differ by more than half a band goes to a third examiner.
Report form issued
The Test Report Form appears in the candidate portal and is sent electronically to the receiving organisations named at registration.
Institutions handling volume can query the register directly through the recruiter API. Access is granted to organisations listed on the recognition register.
Certificate verification portal
Check a Test Report Form
The number is printed at the foot of every Test Report Form. Try the specimen .
Candidate accounts
Five candidates who sat the test in the last eighteen months, and the decision each score was submitted against.
Priya Ramanathan
New Delhi, India
Overall
8.0
The band descriptors are published in full, so I knew exactly what a 7.5 in writing required before I sat the test. Nothing about the marking was a mystery.
Tomás Arellano
Toronto, Canada
Overall
7.5
My Test Report Form was in the portal on the fourth day, and the immigration office pulled the record straight from the verification service. I never had to post a document.
Mariam Haddad
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Overall
7.0
I sat it at my kitchen table on a Tuesday evening. The system check caught that my microphone was muted before the timer started, which saved me the whole speaking section.
Chen Wei-Lin
Singapore
Overall
8.5
I sat the test twice. Both report forms were consistent to within half a band, which told me the marking was doing what it claims to do.
Olusegun Adeyemi
Lagos, Nigeria
Overall
7.0
Free official practice papers, marked against the same descriptors as the real thing. That was the difference between my first attempt and my second.
01 / 05
Guidance
Full regulations are published in the Candidate Handbook. Where this summary and the handbook differ, the handbook governs.