Score Interpretation

ELTiS Proficiency Levels

The ELTiS proficiency scale has five levels. The proficiency levels have verbal descriptions of the skills that students at those levels are likely to have based on their test performance. Level 1 indicates very little proficiency, while level 5 indicates high proficiency. Students who earn proficiency levels 4 and 5 can typically benefit from instruction delivered in English with little or no English language support. See the proficiency levels here.

ELTiS Scaled Scores

The ELTiS 2.0 scaled scores range from 500 to 800, with higher values indicating higher performance. The range of the scaled scores was changed in 2020 when ELTiS 2.0 was introduced. The previous scaled score range was 100-300. ELTiS reports scaled scores instead of raw scores (number correct scores) because scaled scores adjust for small differences in difficulty between different test forms. Scaled scores are more usable and more fair to test takers than raw scores because the scaled score values have the same meaning regardless of which specific test form the test taker took.

Use Overall Scores for Guiding Decisions about Students

A student’s overall ELTiS proficiency level and overall ELTiS scaled score are the most reliable scores that decision makers should use to guide decisions about students. They have the highest dependability and the least amount of error because they are based on each student’s responses to all the questions on a test form.

Use Skill Profile to Guide Learning

ELTiS 2.0 also provides a skill profile for each student, covering listening, reading, understanding explicitly stated information, analyzing and inferring information, and vocabulary and grammar. The profile scores are expressed as proficiency levels and scaled scores. Since the profile scores are based on smaller subsets of test questions than the overall scores, they include more error, and should be used descriptively to guide decisions about learning, perhaps together with other information about the student’s skills.