English & Language Tests
Language proficiency practice for study and employment.
Choose your exam family
Families group sibling exams — the tiers of one credential, the split and combined versions of a licence, the per-state variants. Each opens its own page with every exam and its free resources.
- Versant by Pearson1 examVersion-specific preparation for Pearson's Versant English assessments.Versant Speaking & ListeningExplore Versant by Pearson →
Versant: an employer's English test, scored by machine
Versant is not a certificate you earn once and carry. It is a test that an employer, school or agency administers to measure spoken and listening English quickly and consistently, and the administrator — not the candidate — owns the result. Pearson publishes the test, delivers it by computer or phone, and scores it automatically: speech-recognition and scoring models grade pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary and sentence mastery from the recorded responses, with no human rater in the loop. That is why results are available almost immediately and why an administrator may restrict a candidate's access to the score report.
The speaking and listening test is short and task-based. Candidates read sentences aloud, repeat sentences they hear, answer short questions, build sentences from fragments, retell a short story and answer open questions. Every task is spoken; there is no writing, no multiple choice and no essay. Scores are reported on Pearson's scale with a mapping to the CEFR levels that employers use to set a hiring bar.
Preparation therefore looks different from preparing for a licence exam. There is no syllabus of facts. What helps is fluency practice against the clock, familiarity with each task type so the instructions cost you nothing, and clear articulation for the recognition engine. The practice material here mirrors the task types in the official test guide.
Why you are taking it
The link goes to the test guide, where the task types, timing and score scale come from Pearson's official test guide.
The employer sets the score it wants and receives the report. Ask which test version and which CEFR level they expect, then practise the task types.
Same test, different administrator. Institutions typically publish a minimum score; the official guide maps Versant scores to CEFR levels.
Read aloud, sentence repetition, short answers, sentence builds, story retelling and open questions — all spoken, all recorded, all machine-scored.
Administrators may restrict candidates' access to score reports; the administrator, not Pearson, releases them.
Versant measures speaking and listening only, is automatically scored, and takes far less time than an academic English test. It is built for hiring and placement decisions rather than admissions to universities.
How a Versant administration runs
- 01The administrator issues a test identification number and instructions for the delivery method — computer with headset, or telephone.
- 02You complete the spoken tasks in one sitting; responses are recorded and scored automatically.
- 03The administrator receives the score report and applies its own threshold; you see the report only if the administrator releases it.
Fee, format and passing standard
Each figure is the exam's verified fact, cited to the regulator's page on the exam guide it links to. A blank cell means the regulator publishes no fixed figure.
| Exam | Fee | Questions | Time | Passing | Written by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Versant Speaking & Listening | — | — | 17m | — | Pearson |
Who writes these exams
- Pearson
- Publishes, delivers and automatically scores Versant, and publishes the official test guide that defines the task types and score scale.
- The administering organisation
- Decides who takes the test, which version, what score is required, and whether the candidate sees the report.
Official pages this section is drawn from
- Pearson · Versant English Speaking and Listening — Official Test Guide
- Pearson · Pearson — Versant resources
- Pearson · Pearson
What you'll find on every English & Language Tests exam
Each exam has up to four pages, one per job to be done: practice the questions, understand the exam, study the outline, or revise the morning of. Flashcards and glossary terms sit inside the study guide rather than on pages of their own.
- Practice tests1
- Free question banks with a worked explanation on every answer.
- Exam guides1
- Cost, format, eligibility and difficulty, straight from the official outline.
- Study guides1
- Full outline coverage, plus the exam's flashcards and glossary terms.
- Cheat sheets1
- One-page summaries built for the last review, with a PDF download.
Official sources
Every exam number on this page traces to a document published by the body that sets or administers the exam. These are the primary publishers cited across English & Language Tests.
- Pearsonpearson.comcited by 1 exam
Last verified against these documents: