Job advertisements in many countries list English as .
Employers rarely say which English they mean.
A engineer reading manuals needs different skills from a salesperson on a call.
measure the second badly and the first hardly at all.
therefore prepare for the test rather than the task.
Some firms have replaced the certificate with a short practical exercise.
An reads a real document and it in writing.
The results with performance far better than any score.
It also removes an unfair advantage.
Test preparation is expensive, so scores partly measure family income.
A practical exercise cannot be bought in advance.
Its is that someone has to read and mark each one.