Which language exam to take: the programme decides, not the country
Photo: Tom Hilton · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The question is almost always asked wrongly
"Which exam do I need for China?" has no answer. At one university, one programme asks for HSK, the next for IELTS, and a third for both.
The exam follows the language the degree is taught in, and the requirement is set by the particular university. Not by the country, the ranking, or your profile.
Hence the order: choose the programme, read its requirements, then book the exam. Doing it the other way round is the commonest reason a year of preparation is wasted.
Sometimes two languages are required
The most underrated case. For its Chinese-English taught programmes Tsinghua requires HSK level 5 or above, with scores above 60 in each of listening, reading and writing — and at the same time evidence of English: TOEFL, IELTS or another official test.
On the same university's fully English-taught programmes, no proof of Chinese is required at all. Its eligibility page says so in as many words.
So the line between one exam and two runs inside a single university, between neighbouring programmes. What has to be checked is the programme, not the institution.
We'll match the exam to your programmes
We'll read your universities' requirements, tell you which test and which score you need, and prepare you for it — nineteen languages, with native-speaker teachers.
Where the language decides the money, not the admission
In Czechia and Poland the language of instruction decides the cost rather than the difficulty. Study at a public university is free where the programme is taught in Czech or Polish; English-taught programmes at the same universities are fee-paying.
Czechia adds an entrance exam to that — in Czech, on the Czech curriculum, alongside Czech school-leavers. "Free" there does not mean easier; it means a year of language instead of money.
Set out at length in free study in Czechia and the Karta Polaka.
Duolingo: accepted, but not everywhere
The Duolingo English Test is cheaper and faster than IELTS, and more than eight hundred institutions in Europe accept it. But not universally: the decision belongs to the university, and often to an individual programme within it.
So Duolingo is worth considering only after you have checked it against your own programmes' requirements. Sitting the cheaper exam and discovering your university does not accept it costs money and, worse, weeks before a deadline.
Where both are accepted the choice is practical: Duolingo is quicker to obtain, IELTS is accepted more widely.
What to check today
Open the requirements pages of two or three of your programmes and write down: the language of instruction, which tests are accepted by name, and the minimum score.
Check separately whether a second language is required. If the programme is called Chinese-English, or French-English, or anything of that shape, it almost certainly is.
And count the time: the language exam is the one part of an application that money cannot speed up. Translations take a week; a level of language takes months.
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