the IELTS test producers are committed to maintaining a cycle of
systematic monitoring and continuous improvement of the test and they recognise their responsibility to
enhance test content and delivery in the light of ongoing research and as conditions and circumstances
allow. Thus the researchers’ practical suggestions for how IELTS reading tasks might be extended to
reflect a greater degree of global and interpretative reading are immediately relevant to the test-writing
process. The sample tasks offered at the end of the report should offer valuable input to the IELTS itemwriting
teams currently working on material for the Academic Reading module. It may be that closer
attention can be given by the test writers to ensuring a larger proportion of reading test items that function
at the global and interpretative levels. In the longer term, it is interesting to speculate whether future
computer-based development of IELTS might permit a greater inclusion in the reading test of some of the
features that characterise academic reading, and thus a broader representation of the construct of interest.
Innovative computer-based testing techniques, for example, might enable the test-taker to do one or
more of the following: engage with larger quantities of text; interact with multiple texts; exercise skills
related to the searching and selecting of sources, including electronic media; and even undertake more
sophisticated reading-into-writing tasks.