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I am going to sue ETS


Sick and Tired of iBT

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I am going to sue ETS

 

Hi guys,

 

I’m going to sue ETS on their blood sucking iBT. I have gathered a great deal of information about them and their ways in treating their customers ”test takers” that would help explain dozens of ETS mistakes . I have contacted a big attorney firm. The lawyers over there are collecting information. I am waiting for their final decision.

 

The reason why I am contacting you is because my lawyers have advised me that the more candidates claiming unfair test conditions or questions, the better our chance would be.

 

Personally, I am a pharmacist and my career has almost gone. My life is in the middle of no where. I have lost my opportunity to live nearby my family in my state. I have nothing to lose. I have been taking the TSE and TOEFL iBT 15 times since January 2006. I have been doing nothing but studying and taking ETS tests for 14 months. Is it fair? Meanwhile, I have lost job opportunities. I have spent fortune on TOEFL registration and materials. I have lost my self-esteem. Consequently, I have decided on filing my claim. They think that most of the foreigners in the U.S. have no rights. ETS reserves the rights to have our test responses without even treating us as humans Instead, they look down to most of us as if we were their slaves. Have you ever called the ETS customer services? Try it.

 

Let me tell you a real story. I believe that every body remembers the chaos of TOEFL iBT in November 2006. Last November 2006, I called to inquire about my TOEFL iBT test results that had not been published and been late for about 20 days. Asking me tens of questions about my identity, the customer service representative said that she could not give me MY test results. I asked for her supervisor. The honorable man said the same claiming that I did not have my test registration number given that I had correctly answered every single question concerning my name, birth date, address, test center, date and time, and so forth. I, inoffensively, thought to ask this supervisor about who would be the auditor for ETS. Surprise!!! “NO ONE IS AUDITING US”, said the supervisor.:mad: After 2-3 minutes of what I should call monologue,I was the only one talking, he, sarcastically, advised me to go ahead and ask my institution ((NABP)) to assign me another test. :eek:

Based on what is mentioned above, please answer the following question.

 

Who in the world would repel customers by asking them to find someone else to do what s/he supposed to make living of?

The answer is one word: MONOPOLY

 

ETS has succeeded to convince universities as well as professional institutions like the NABP to recognize ETS as the only English test maker in the US. In doing so, they held some practice tests in countries like England. Of course, the English students could have made it in the speaking test. Taking preliminary phase results into their considerations, they provided the NABP with misleading figures and numbers about the potential scores of the upcoming ETS innovation, TOEFL iBT.

 

I happened to get 29 on reading, 29 on listening, 29 on writing, and my best was 24 in speaking. When I requested rescoring my 24 in speaking, they remarked my test and I got 22 instead. On another test, I got R: 28, L: 28, S: 19, W: 28!!!!!

 

According to my understanding, any language consists of two aspects. The first aspect is the ability to receive the language. You comprehend the language using your reading and listening capabilities. The second aspect is the ability to inform others your message using this language via the writing and/or speaking. Having achieved 29 on the writing section, I would consider my abilities in conveying information using the English Language adequate. Therefore, the problem would be in the speaking score. Is it the right reflection of my real speaking level? According to my professors, instructors, colleagues, associates, co-workers, friends, neighbors, family, and letter of recognitions that I have gotten from my college, I SPEAK ENGLISH FLUENTLY. Moreover, the way by which the speaking part of the TOEFL iBT test is brought in make it harder for me to prove my competence in the language. I find it hard to come up with a perfect summary concerning 2-3 minutes lecture I have just heard to. Besides, The TOEFL iBT test mainstay would be on university situations, conversations, lectures, problems, and so on. What does this have to do with my situation? I am taking this test to be licensed as a pharmacist. Should a pharmacist be a problem solver to academic situation? I believe there are many different ways to evaluate professionals better than speaking for 5.5 minutes in the TOEFL iBT.

 

It is better for either the NABP or the ETS to assign another test and call it TOEFLP (Test of English as a Foreign Language for PROFESSIONALS). It is an idea that no body would even think about. As mentioned above, it is monopoly. It is all about business and business relationships. I was just wandering, what the mean of the speaking section test results would be in case that the NABP agreed upon IELTS as another approved test. Do I smell something bad?:hmm: It might be. However, I trust NABP.

 

If you are interested, just send me at

 

sickntired_ibt@yahoo.com

 

Thanks for your consideration

 

It took them 4 days to post my new scores online. However, I tried TSE rescoring before. I took about 40 days.

As far as I know, there is nothing you can make sure about when dealing with ETS. They just do whatever they want depending on the fact that you have nothing to do.

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Thats true guys tell me anytime if you need my help.

I m also like you , i mean I am also a pharmacy student from my country and tried iBT 3 times yet within 6 months , and every time I was not able to get req. score in speaking only.

First of all my que is if you pass one section in one test why u have to pass it in next test also?

I think i get so bored of those blood sucker 5 horrible paragraphs(those stupid archiologycal ,languistic , geological, music , opera etc which has nothing to do with our career and interest) and after completing those i cannot control my self so I cannot conc. on the speaking section and thats why i cant perform well.

second thing is that this test DOESNOT measure ur ability to speak at all because u have to think a lot of things in 15 secs. which is a measurement of ur thought process and not of the speaking capacity okkkkk.

I m sure if english and american student take this test 60 out of 100 r not going to pass bcoz its not all about speaking but its the speed of thinking abt topic---then find words ----then make sentence --that to be effective ---and all within 15 secs. thats really unfair.

And I will not only blaim ETS but the NABP also. why they need 26 score , do they have any study which shows that to become a pharmacist , therapist or dentist somebody needs 26 score to speak english???? If yes then they shod take test of all currently licensed pharmacist , dentist ,therapist, docs also. becoz they r also practising here without test.

How come they decide this limit???????

I think there is a higher level curreption and tie up between ETS and other educational orgs. to share fees and blood sucked from test takers???

Sorry frnds I m so fed up with this system so I cannt control.

Being a topper of university in my country and having extensive knowledge in my field I am just not able to perform in my field here just becoz of this f.......ing so called "test of english as a foreign lang"

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It is just horrible, I am taking my exam this saturday, well tomorrow, and I am just terrified when I read about your experience, and on the top of that you have lived in the states for several years already, then what are we the simple people going to do. I am doing speaking exercise right now and I have the Longman iBT CD and they give you sample answers to the questions and I just decided to countdown the answers and when you have to speak for 45sec the sample responses are definately more than 45 sec long, at least 70, this applies to the other questions too, there were only 2 sample responses which where the perfect 60sec. I dont know how am I going to do that test, and I dont want my parents to give so much money for the test just like you did, come on after all this is 140$ my dad's monthly income is twice that...
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Get the ETS book and Princeton Review. If you follow longman, you won't finish the speaking in time. TMI. Too much information on speaking.

 

ETS suggests that you must answer the questions on what they are being asked.

 

Check it on amazon.com or go to Barne & Noble and read it there. There is little information presented on ETS book about how to get a good score on speaking portion. I bought through amazon.com.

 

The most difficult part is how to concise your too much information to 6-8 sentences under time pressure.:tup:

 

This test is not the test to assess you speaking ability, but the test to test your organizing ability in 45 seconds. My friend who could not speak well and has lived in the U.S. only 6 months but she could pass the TSE. (speaking test) There is no correlation between how long you have lived in the U.S., how well you speak English, or how well your English is and how high you can get a score of 26 on speaking portion.

 

My Saudi Arabian friend who speaks English like a native speaker received only a score 20 on speaking. English is the first language he speaks before Arabic.

 

It is all the test taking ability and concentration and how well you control yourself in bad test conditions.

 

Knok

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:mad:i am thinking to join you. how much it will cost and how many years we can go for this .what was your lawyers told you about the success for that. here is my story . i live her in usa for almost 7 years. every body understand while i am speaking. i took fbgee and pass from the first time. i took tse many times 20 . i did get 50 i got 45. i tried to register for toefl ibt many times on the internet on the internet from last august . i could not because of their system were down all the time.now i am going to my country for visiting.on march and april. can you believe that i registered for the test on march and april it took me 2 minutes. i called customer services to explain for them my problem. i told them i am going to sue them . they said we will have case number and conference call with you. and they ignore me after that. they treat us like second hand. i will think about that and send email for you but first would you please answer my questions. i lost 6 years of my life i have nothing to loose else. thank you .
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Get the ETS book and Princeton Review. If you follow longman, you won't finish the speaking in time. TMI. Too much information on speaking.

 

ETS suggests that you must answer the questions on what they are being asked.

 

Check it on amazon.com or go to Barne & Noble and read it there. There is little information presented on ETS book about how to get a good score on speaking portion. I bought through amazon.com.

 

The most difficult part is how to concise your too much information to 6-8 sentences under time pressure.:tup:

 

This test is not the test to assess you speaking ability, but the test to test your organizing ability in 45 seconds. My friend who could not speak well and has lived in the U.S. only 6 months but she could pass the TSE. (speaking test) There is no correlation between how long you have lived in the U.S., how well you speak English, or how well your English is and how high you can get a score of 26 on speaking portion.

 

My Saudi Arabian friend who speaks English like a native speaker received only a score 20 on speaking. English is the first language he speaks before Arabic.

 

It is all the test taking ability and concentration and how well you control yourself in bad test conditions.

 

Knok

 

I do have the official ets guide, I used it only for the reading and the listening parts, and there they were quite easy, I did couple of test from the Barron's CD and the reading and listening sections are way much difficult I still make no more than 10 errors on the long reading section and 3-5 in the listening, but I thought that the speaking and the writing would be the same, wherever I study from....I dont know, for the past couple of days I have been doing only speaking, and I also tried to write down important things from the lectures and conversations but they talk way too fast and I am usually a slow writer, and I only managed to write down couple of words, we'll see, I am reading the speaking section right now, I hope it will help me....thanks for the advice, am doing the test in 4 hours, so we'll see

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Hi everyone,

 

I thought to give you an update of what is happening. I have been contacted by my lawyer. As previously mentioned, he advised me to have at least 50 candidates claiming personal injury and/or stressful conditions and all its subsequences. As of now, I have contacted 18 candidates who are willing to fight this hassle in the court.

The main obstacle would be that my lawyer is not familiar with such type of cases. He asked me to pay him in advance and I replied that I could not afford such trial. I offered him to have 60% or more of the settlement instead of the usual 25-40%. I told him that my main focus would be on having my FPGEC not the money. He said that he would be thinking about it. He is going to reach a decision in a couple of weeks.

 

Should you be interested, e-mail me at:

 

Please, check my first correspondence here:

http://www.www.urch.com/forums/toefl/64996-i-am-going-sue-ets.html

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Everyone,

 

There is an organization in the USA that is #1 in handling complaints about bad businesses (ETS?), it is the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.com).

 

They will contact the company for you, and if enough people complain there will media coverage. You can file a complaint here: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx

 

Please, everyone with a complaint about ETS, file a complaint!

 

Note also, if someone sues ETS, a history of complaints to the BBB will help your case!

 

Tino

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Guys,

 

I would like to thank Tina on the precious advice concerning filing our claim to www.bbb.com

 

It works.

 

I am asking every one to do her/his part. Start sending a well written claim to this agency. Avoid using bad words or something that would seem insulting to ETS. Just tell what happened to you. Just claim that the test is not a measure of my abilities to speak English. Prove it. Make it as professional as you can.

 

Hey pharmacists, you are professionals; you can do it.

 

Please, check my first correspondence here:

http://www.www.urch.com/forums/toefl/64996-i-am-going-sue-ets.html

 

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Knok,

You are neither stupid nor wrong. You are following your constitutional right to put your American dream into effect. Just believe in yourself. Just trust that every thing happens for a reason.

I agree with you that you have fallen into the ETS trap. However, do not let them make you feel like down in the dumps.

My advice to you is that do not take this throbbing test once again. The magic word is “boycott”. Think about it. Spread it as wide as you can. Send it to every body. Tell your story everywhere. I do this. It works. I am even sending daily e-mail to guys like Glenn Beck and so forth.

Think about it.

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"American dream" ? I don't have any of it. I just know and learn that discrimation is everywhere. This test discriminates against someone who cannot speak like an American. Only the TOEFLiBT and TSE raters are selfish and do not care about others.

 

It will be really helpful for test takers if they just describe in detials and give a specific comment for each question we make mistakes. This will help us to improve and make it possible for any of us to reach the score of 26.

 

This methods can do easily. TOEFL iBT director knows all about this. He does not want to do because it will make it too easy to pass. ETS will make less money. They all are businessmen, not teachers who want to see successes of their students.

 

God will punish them one way or another. They will pay the price on what they did to all test takers all over the world.

 

I will spread the words everywhere. Don't worry. Getting a score of 26 is really more difficult than what anyone thinks. I disagree with NABP when it says that TOEFLiBT designs for test takers to improve their English. How can we improve speaking when there is nowhere in their evaluation sheet that says what we really made mistakes? It is a copy and paste comment. It is trashy and useless.

 

What I really disagree is the time pressure ETS puts on test takers to speak at the moment..beep..beep..

It is too machanical, which makes it hard for test takers to speak in time alloted.

 

If you are not sure you can do it, don't ruin your life by taking this test. You get 24.. 2 more points. You are almost there. Yes, you may be there forever. When I took TSE.. I received 45.. 5 more points. I was almost there...yes, I was there forever. The biggest guy who got benefits on the hardships of others received $300,000 bonus in the past year.. What kind of non-profit organization it was making profit that much?..:hmm:

 

I will be gone for a while..before I say something that make any of you more depressed. I have a long story for this. I will post it later, not this week. I will tell you what I have gone through since I prepared for TOEFL in 1995 and passed in 1996, went and finished graduate schools. After I received two master's degrees, then have taken all courses for speech communication. After that, I have taken Kaplan TOEFL course, not to mention taking Bruno Hill course (accent reduction course) since 2005 until now. I strongly believe that my speaking has improved a lot.

 

Where are you located? I am ready to do anything we need to do. My lawyer is also a good lawyer. I have contacted him since TSE discontinued.

 

Believe in yourself. Things will be done one way or another, sooner or later.;)

 

One more comment I want to share for today:

 

Anyone may argue that I need to prepare for this English test as hard as I prepared for FPGEE. I surely did. Please see how long I prepared for the whole English test, including the time spending on speaking section alone. I spent almost 5 years for speaking section alone. I have pain mentally and physically for too long now. Don't think too positively for this test like I did in the past. My private tutors even told me to stop taking it long time ago. They said, " I went to the pharmacy. I had hardly understood what that pharmacist spoke. Your speech is more understandable than his. What does this speaking test want from you? I don't understand."

 

Please watch your steps and do not trust ETS. :evil:

 

 

Knok

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree with you guys, we need to do something. Other day an university professor told me that many English speaking students shouldn’t pass in TOEFL test, and I agree with him. In my opinion the new Ibt Toefl tests more than reading, listening, speaking and writing abilities, it test your ability to reasoning quickly in several situations.

 

Another problem big problem today is the inadequate environment for this kind of test. The TOEFL.org opened several test locations and they aren’t prepared to apply this hard test, mainly the speaking section. Last month I took the test in an ETS school, we were six persons using the same counter with no division or isolation. Since the beginning – reading and listening sections, even using headphones, I heard not only my computer but also the neighbor computer. Than you can imagine how was the speaking section, it was sadly funny, and the school’s staff was so worried with the security procedures!!!

 

For new test takers, I suggest to visit the test location before registration, disruptive environment should be avoid.

All the best,

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  • 3 years later...

The test is hard enough itself, it becomes even harder when you are not isolated in your cabin. Today I took the IBT and while I was going to answer my speaking question, the man in the cabin next to mine started to speak loudly about the same topic as mine. I lost all my concentration and couldn't say anything worthy.

 

It is stupid that a responsible company like microsoft is fined in millions every year and a perfect monopoly like ETS gets away from it.

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another issue I think you should consider in your file against ETS, is the extra listening/reading passage. It makes test takers tired and worsens their performance in the remaining sections. Test takers want to evaluate their own english skills not to be ETS lab rats to see if their tests are standard or not.
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  • 3 months later...

Hey there,

 

What happened with your lawsuit? This so called non profit org is a perpetual money making machine and we need to take our money back. I am a pharmacist trying to get 26 in speaking of course. In the meantime, I make my donation to them and help some people get rich by taking this test over and over again until I get sick of it.

I looked on bbb website today. They are evaluated as an A+ business and I have seen that they have only approx 150 complaints. I couldn't believe my eyes. I can't believe they have the authorization to function.

I will complain to bbb because we are required to take the whole test when we are only trying to pass just a section of the test and pay them money and take it from there. That besides the fact that the test conditions are horrible.

 

Any lawyers around?

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