Chen, a woman working with a foreign investment company, hurried into an agrotechnical college on Saturday morning to sit an IELTS test which has more candidates than any other test of its kind in the world.

Chen was one of 695 candidates who sat the IELTS test taking place in Guangzhou, provincial capital of South China's Guangdong.

The IELTS, the International English Language Testing System, is designed to assess the English of people who want to study or work in countries and regions where English is the language of communication.

It is jointly administered by three organizations, the British Council, the IDP Education Australia and the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

In English-speaking countries such as Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the IELTS is accepted by educational institutions as a measurement of a students' English ability.

Up until now IELTS test centers have been set up throughout more than 110 countries and regions.

Since it was introduced into China in April 1990, the IELTS has become popular throughout the country. In recent years, more Chinese are planning to study in or immigrate to English-speaking countries, and as a result the number of people who intend to take a IELTS test has grown up dramatically.

There have been 19 IELTS test centers set up in major cities across the country.

The growing demand has made China, with the largest population in the world, to become the biggest IELTS user worldwide, says Emma Stubbs, examinations services manager for the Cultural and Educational Section of the British Consulate in Guangzhou.

It is estimated that there are over 45,000 candidates taking IELTS tests in China this year.

In Guangzhou alone, 63 IELTS test sessions have been organized since the test was first launched at the Zhongkai Agrotechnical College in January 1997, attracting a total of 12,000 candidates, according to the manager.

Because of the Christmas holidays, the Guangzhou test center merged the usual two December tests into one, which led to the record number of candidates for this particular IELTS test.

"There is not much difference between this test and the tests held in the past, except that we need more test rooms, more test papers, more testing facilities, more examiners and more supervisors," says Wang, one of the supervisors at the Zhongkai Agrotechnical College, the IELTS Guangzhou test center.

Most candidates of this record IELTS test are from the Guangdong Province, while the rest are from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the provinces of Hunan, Fujian, Jiangxi and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The candidates were given listening, reading, writing and oral tests, and will receive their results two weeks after the examination.

(China Daily December 17, 2001)