Deep dive: Linguaskill Business and the Dutch audit

When a language test is used for admission, graduation or professional development, you need to be able to rely on the result. How well does the test align with the language levels? Are the tasks relevant? And how carefully are delivery and marking organised?

Hobéon Certification & Accreditation examined Linguaskill and Linguaskill Business against the Dutch requirements for language tests within the Code of Conduct for International Students in Higher Education. The audit team studied extensive documentation, held five rounds of discussions with Cambridge specialists and had a product auditor take both exams.

The conclusion: both tests and the providing organisation meet the assessment framework. The auditors gave a positive recommendation for inclusion in the Dutch language test table.

A substantiated result from B1 up to and including C2.

The auditors judged the link between the exams and the CEFR levels to be valid and traceable. According to the report, the score boundaries align with the descriptions of B1, B2, C1 and C2.

Cambridge also regularly checks whether questions and score boundaries continue to measure the intended level. For schools, this means a well-founded basis for setting language requirements and interpreting results.

Test content that matches professional ambitions.

Linguaskill Business measures English in a business context, with the corresponding language use. The audit confirms that the task types suit the target group and the qualification requirements.

In Writing, the candidate writes both a business email and a report. This demonstrates different forms of business writing: corresponding briefly and purposefully, and structuring information in a longer text.

For business schools, this matches the communication students need during their studies and future careers.

From the development of a question to the marking of the answer.

The report describes a carefully organised development process with separated responsibilities and independent checks. New questions are pretested before they are added to the operational item bank.

Cambridge also keeps analysing the test during use, looking at difficulty, changes in how questions perform and possible differences between groups of candidates.

The audit further confirms that appropriate processes are in place to safeguard consistency between markers.

Certainty about the candidate and the result.

When the test is taken at a test centre, identity is checked at several moments. The auditors judge the scope for fraud to be restricted to the maximum.

The report also mentions ISO 27001 certification for information security. Educational institutions can check results directly via Cambridge’s Results Verification Service. The auditors explicitly advise institutions to use this digital verification.

Targeted resits can produce a more representative result.

With My Best Score, a candidate can retake a single skill. The auditors assess this option positively: a result becomes less dependent on incidental disruptions during a single test moment.

The report concludes that the regulated resit option can contribute to a more reliable picture of language proficiency.

Included in the Dutch language test table since 1 October 2026.

Linguaskill and Linguaskill Business are included in the Language Test Annex of the Code of Conduct for International Students in Higher Education. The new annex applies to prospective international students applying for academic year 2027–2028.

This gives institutions covered by the Code of Conduct an additional way to demonstrate English proficiency for admission. The required scores and test conditions still apply; institutions may set higher admission requirements. Remote delivery is only permitted under this scheme in the exceptional situations described.

On the website of the National Committee you can find the full audit report under Cambridge University Press and Assessment: Linguaskill and Linguaskill Business. The report is in Dutch.