, 5 minutes to read
A paper placement test looks free. The questions were written years ago, the photocopier is already there, and the teachers are on the payroll. The costs are real all the same; they are simply entered under other headings. This guide helps you to add them up for your own school.
Where the time goes
Follow one candidate through a typical placement on paper:
- Arranging it. Someone agrees a time with the candidate, or the candidate comes on a fixed placement day.
- Sitting it. A room is needed, and usually somebody to hand out the paper and collect it.
- Marking it. A teacher goes through the answers against the key and adds up the mark.
- Deciding. The mark is turned into a level, often with a second look at the borderline cases.
- Recording it. The result is typed into whatever the school uses to form groups.
None of these steps is long. Together they are rarely under ten minutes of staff time for each candidate, and often well over.
A formula you can fill in
For a year of placement on paper:
candidates in a year × staff minutes for each ÷ 60 × what an hour of that person’s time costs you
An example with round numbers, which you should replace with your own: a school places 300 new students a year, and each takes 12 minutes of staff time. That is 60 hours. If an hour of a teacher’s time costs the school €25 with everything included, the paper test costs €1,500 a year, and it costs it in the two or three weeks when teachers have least time to give.
The same 300 candidates on NGPT cost €597 before VAT, and the 60 hours go back to teaching. Try your own numbers on the pricing page.
The costs that have no line in the budget
The enquiry that never came in
If the test happens only at the school, a person who enquires on Sunday evening has to wait, and travel, before they learn which course is theirs. Some will not. A test they can take at once, on a phone, keeps the enquiry moving while the interest is fresh.
The wrong group
A misplaced student costs a teacher’s attention for weeks, and sometimes costs the school the student. Moving them costs an awkward conversation and a rearranged timetable. A result with a score and a margin does not prevent every wrong placement, but it shows you in advance which placements are uncertain.
The paper that everyone has seen
A fixed test that has been used for years is known. Returning students remember it and friends pass it on. The mark drifts upward and the levels with it.
What an online test costs in turn
To be fair to paper, an online test has costs of its own:
- The price per test, which is visible in a way that staff time is not.
- Candidates without an e-mail address or a device. They are few, and they can take the test on a tablet at your front desk.
- No supervision. A candidate at home can ask for help. For placement the incentive is weak, since a student who cheats lands in a group that is too hard, but it is worth saying so in the invitation.
- Speaking is still yours. No written test replaces two minutes of conversation. What changes is that you need it only for the borderline cases.
A fair comparison in one table
| Paper at the school | Adaptive test by link | |
|---|---|---|
| Staff time for each candidate | Minutes, at the busiest time | None for the test itself |
| Money for each candidate | Hidden in salaries | A published price |
| Wait between enquiry and result | Days | The length of the test |
| What you learn | A mark | Level, score, margin |
If you want to see how the two compare at your own school, run them side by side for one intake: NGPT offers ten free tests for exactly that.