The Educational Testing Service (ETS) will arrange a make-up test for a number of Chinese students who were affected by technical glitches during the launch of the new Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language exam last Friday (Sep 15).

The service still doesn't know what caused a series of problems at several exam centers in the city that affected an unknown number of students.

Test takers at the affected test centers are eligible to sign up for a free make-up exam on Sept. 23, even if they didn't finish writing the test on Friday.

The ETS, together with the National Educational Examination Authority, will also refund test fees and reimburse documented travel expenses incurred in traveling to take the test for uncompleted test takers, according to a statement released by U.S.-based ETS on Saturday.

"We sincerely apologize to the test takers affected by the situation. The ETS is committed to identifying the cause of the technical issue and preventing it from happening in the future," the statement said.

The ETS terminated the TOEFL paper test and launched its first-ever online, Internet-based TOEFL at test centers in six major Chinese cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Chengdu -- last Friday.

More than 500 people throughout the country signed up for the debut test, including about 100 from Shanghai, test authorities said.
However, the test, which was scheduled to start at 4 p.m., didn't get started until 5 p.m. at East China Normal University, the biggest exam site in Shanghai.

Worse, some test takers reported that the system gave no response to answers they typed in, or earphones didn't work during the exam's oral section.

Some students were forced to quit almost three hours before the exam was finished. Students taking the exam at Shanghai International Studies University faced similar glitches.

"It's almost unbelievable to encounter such disorder at a TOEFL exam," said a student surnamed Wang. "As many U.S. universities require a TOEFL score before Oct. 1, the test failure might block my application this year."

The ETS authorities said that they would also send letters to institutional score recipients on behalf of all affected test takers to explain the situation.

Test takers can contact exam organizers before Wednesday to sign up for the make-up test.

No technicial errors in Guangdong's first TOEFL online exam

The first online TOEFL test in Guangzhou went on smoothly last week and were not affected by the technical errors that have affected some exam sites in Shanghai.

Editor: Wing