Reply To: Rules Accreditation – Test Reform

September 25, 2024 at 12:53 pm #5910
Yukie Yamaguchi
Participant

Thank you for raising this concern, I totally agree with you.

From a non-native English speaker’s perspective, the language used in the test is way more complicated than the one in the rulebook. I often feel like this test challenges my English language comprehension rather than my understanding of the rules. I think I have advanced English reading skills and know strategies to understand sophisticated writing components considering I am doing a master’s degree in English teaching/linguistics in Australia, but I still often struggle to comprehend the test contents. So for people with an intermediate or beginner level of English, getting a higher score should be very challenging.

Also, to tell the truth, I know many Japanese players use translation apps such as Google Translate to complete the test because they do not have enough English competency to finish the test without it. However, because of the complexity of the language used in the test, the translation often does not work well and it makes people confused. They try again and again and often end up remembering answers rather than going back to the rulebooks and enhancing their understanding.
Surely this language comprehension issue can be a huge disadvantage for non-English speakers and I am also concerned poor quality translation even can cause a misunderstanding of the rules. but it is difficult to prevent people stop using it because there is no means for them other than that.

So I would really appreciate it if we could have simpler descriptions in the test.