Making sure that a new exam is a thorough and fair test is a complicated and multi-faceted process, requiring careful research, checking and trial. Some of the world’s leading experts in language assessment contribute to the work of Cambridge English, and the quality of the exams is built on their combined expertise.

New exams have to go through a rigorous series of processes including:

• commissioning the exam – where the scope and time frame for the new exam is decided
• pre-editing – checking that the material written by the exam question writers broadly fits the brief
• editing – ensuring the quality and accuracy of the test paper
• pretesting/trialling – trying out the test paper to ensure that it tests candidates in the way expected
• pretest/trial review – checking the results of the pretesting and trials to see if further editing is needed
• test construction – the new exam is checked to ensure the level and focus of the test are correct and that there are no overlaps with other existing tests
• overview – a final critical review of the whole process before the question paper production process begins.

The quality management system is certificated to the ISO 9001:2015 standard.

Exams are only released when they are completely satisfied that the test has passed all of these stages. In many cases it takes two years from the first stages of planning to students sitting the first session of the new test.

Pretesting is a vital element in the Cambridge English examination development process. Trialling exam materials with students before they are used in exams helps them ensure:

• the exams are accurate and fair, with each individual item pitched at the right level
• test content is appropriate and that people from all backgrounds can do equally well.

This is done by:

• carefully looking at the answers from candidates in pretests
• using complex benchmarking processes
• listening to feedback from both candidates and teachers.

For a test to be fair and accurate, everyone who takes it has to have the same opportunity to succeed.

To guarantee the tests are fair, Cambridge English has a number of important security measures in place to ensure that exam papers are safely distributed from their headquarters in Cambridge to the thousands of exam centres around the world where the tests take place.

Exam papers are delivered to test centres by a number of secure methods – some receive them by secure post, and in some countries they are sent to a courier for delivery only on the day of the test.

Exam papers frequently need to be stored for brief periods of time before the exam, as do the completed exam scripts before they are returned to Cambridge English for marking. All exam centres are required to have secure storage facilities and are inspected regularly to ensure they meet their strict criteria for security.

Many of the certificates can now be earned through taking a computer-based version of the test. In these cases, the exam is sent electronically to the exam centre ahead of the test, but can only be opened when an encryption key is sent on the day of the test itself.

Cambridge English's reputation for quality is not limited to the examinations alone. Quality is a process which begins with the research and design of tests and ends with an accurate assessment of each candidate’s entry.

The assessment of a candidate’s work has to be as consistent and reliable as every other aspect of the examination process. For this reason all of the exams are returned to Cambridge for marking.

When they receive the completed written papers, they are randomly allocated for marking – this ensures that, regardless of where they have come from, all papers are marked fairly.

The examiners who mark the tests are themselves subject to strict monitoring of their performance to ensure that their marking is accurate and consistent.

Speaking tests use two assessors to ensure accuracy. They record and sample Speaking tests for subsequent monitoring.

Some of the computer-based tests, such as Linguaskill, are able to give an instant assessment, which is of great value to those who are testing large numbers of people for educational or recruitment purposes.

Cambridge English exams have a long-established and well-deserved reputation for excellence. It is essential to the quality of the exams, and the continued reputation of Cambridge English, that each candidate experiences a test that consistently meets the high standards set.

To achieve this, they have the largest dedicated research team of any English language assessment organisation. The work they do in validating the exams – ensuring their quality, fairness and relevance – is vital to their continued high reputation.

Cambridge English works closely with leading specialists in the following disciplines:

• testing and assessment
• statistical analysis and item-banking
• applied linguistics
• corpus linguistics
• language learning/pedagogy.

Together they carry out a variety of research projects for all of the exams.

Because they are a not-for-profit organisation, they are perhaps unique in sharing the findings of much of their research with other academics and specialists in the language testing community.

They regularly give presentations to conferences, submit papers to leading academic journals, and also publish research findings in their own publications:

• the quarterly journal Research Notes
• a series of volumes entitled Studies in Language Testing (SiLT).