Arabic proficiency testing for hiring

Find out how well a candidate speaks and writes Arabic before anyone interviews them. A link out, a CEFR level back in minutes. Nobody on your team has to speak it.

Conversation StartersQuestion 1 of 2

Recording
15s to think, then 40s to answerSample question
Speaking
7 min
Writing
15 min
Result
CEFR A1 to C2
From
$0.60 a test

Who tests for Arabic

Roles that commonly ask for it

  • customer service agents
  • patient relations staff
  • cabin crew
  • bank staff

Arabic hiring centres on the Gulf, where government services, aviation, banking and healthcare serve Arabic-speaking customers, and on contact centres in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco that serve the wider region.

The questions are written in Modern Standard Arabic, the shared written and formal standard, rather than any one regional dialect.

What the candidate does

The same structure, timings and rubric for everyone, in Arabic. The buttons and timers around the questions follow the candidate's own language, so nobody is scored on operating the page.

Speaking

about 7 minutes
Conversation StartersExtended ResponseReading Fluency

Two everyday questions, one longer topic, then a short passage read aloud, which isolates pronunciation from the content of an answer. Each question is read aloud in Arabic, and the pale stretch before each answer is think time.

Total timed: 5 minutes.

Writing

about 15 minutes
Casual WritingProfessional Writing

A short everyday message, then a longer structured piece scored for organisation as well as accuracy. Pasting is switched off for every candidate.

Total timed: 15 minutes.
Think time AnsweringDrawn to scale within each skill.

A level you can put in a job description

Ten scores, five per skill, and the reasoning behind the level, so a result you disagree with can be checked rather than trusted.

One scale across every language: a B2 in Arabic means what a B2 in English means.

How the scoring works
Sample result

Speaking & Writing · Arabic

Overall
CEFR level
B2

Speaking

Pronunciation62
Fluency58
Grammar66
Vocabulary61
Coherence64

Writing

Task response68
Organisation64
Vocabulary60
Grammar63
Conventions71
What went well

Held the thread of an argument across a long answer and recovered naturally after losing a word. Vocabulary was appropriate to a professional register throughout.

Opportunities

Hesitation before complex clauses slowed the pace. Article use was inconsistent in the written responses, though it never obscured the meaning.

Questions people ask

What level of Arabic should a role require?
B2 is the usual bar for a role where someone has to handle an unscripted conversation in Arabic, which covers most customer service agents, patient relations staff, cabin crew and bank staff. B1 is generally enough for internal or heavily scripted work, and C1 is worth asking for where the wording carries risk: escalations, client management, anything contractual.
Do I need to speak Arabic to use the results?
No. The result is a CEFR level for speaking and for writing, with a score on each of five dimensions and the reasoning behind the level, in a dashboard that is in English. That is the point of it: most teams hiring for Arabic have nobody on the hiring side who could judge it themselves.
Does the candidate have to read the instructions in Arabic?
The questions are in Arabic, because that is what is being tested. The interface around them, the buttons, timers and welcome screen, follows the candidate instead: it opens in their browser's language, in any of the languages we assess, and they can switch it before the clock starts. Somebody being assessed on Arabic should not also be assessed on reading the page.
How long does a Arabic test take, and what does it cost?
Speaking takes about 7 minutes and returns a level on its own. Add writing and the whole assessment is about 20 minutes. It costs from $0.60 a test on annual billing, the same in every language, and you can start free with ten assessments without a card.
Can we use our own Arabic questions?
Yes. You can write your own question library in Arabic, for example one per role, and choose for each assessment whether it draws from yours or from our standard Arabic library. Question types and timings stay fixed, so a level from your library means the same as one from ours.
Does the test handle Arabic written right to left?
Yes. Questions and the candidate's written answers run right to left, and the answer box is set to Arabic from the first keystroke rather than flipping direction partway through. The interface itself is also available in Arabic.

Try it on ten Arabic speakers you already know

Ten free assessments, no card. Send them to people whose Arabic you can already vouch for. If the levels match, you have your answer.

No credit card required.