English speaking test

Versant English Test

Screen your job candidates or students quickly with Versant English Test, a 15-minute test of spoken English that delivers results in minutes.

Using a computer or smartphone, candidates respond to prompts allowing us to measure comprehension, vocabulary and pronunciation - perfect if you have hundreds of candidates to screen or simply want a way to objectively measure skills anywhere, anytime.

With over 350 million tests scored over 20 years, Versant uses AI to help HR, government, and school directors recruit, promote, train, and develop staff.

Learn how it works

A look into our test

Test takers respond to different types of questions via computer or smartphone, allowing us to evaluate each candidate's overall abilities plus their fluency, pronounciation, sentence mastery and vocabulary skills. Millions of data points are collected throughout the Versant English Test that feed into our patented scoring algorithm.

Sentence Builds

During this question type, test takers listen to a group of three short phrases presented in random order and then rearrange the phrases to make a sentence.

Performance during this task feeds into pronunciation, sentence mastery, and vocabulary scores.

Story Retelling

In this section of the test, test takers listen to a series of brief stories and retell the stories in English using their own words.

Performance during this task feeds into fluency, pronunciation, sentence mastery, and vocabulary scores.

Short Answer Questions

Test takers listen to a series of questions during the Short Answer Questions section, and are instructed to answer in a simple response.

Performance during this task feeds into the vocabulary score.

Other question types in the Versant English Test include Reading, Repeats, and Open Questions.

Intelligibility, a new proficiency index for Versant

Pearson English’s new Intelligibility index score is available exclusively on the Versant English Test score report, enabling corporations to look beyond a candidate’s technical English skills to determine how well they can communicate with others. And because Intelligibility is scored automatically by our patented AI system, you can be confident that scores are consistently fair and reliable for candidates of any background.

Meet this job applicant…

This job applicant has excellent grammar and vocabulary knowledge in his field, but English native speakers have trouble understanding him because he drops some consonants and speaks with an unfamiliar rhythm.

This job applicant has LOW intelligibility.

Meet this student…

This student has a strong accent despite studying English for many years. She speaks at a rate that is appropriate for listeners and enunciates clearly enough that native speakers can quickly get used to her accent and understand her.

This student has HIGH intelligibility.

Having high intelligibility doesn’t mean speaking without an accent, or with flawless word usage or pronunciation. It simply means that it doesn’t take other speakers of the language a lot of effort to understand what is being said.

Product Flyer

Score Report

Validation Report