These tests are not limited to one course, curriculum, or single skill in a language; rather they aim to test global competence in a language.

They identify aspects of a language that a student needs to develop or that a course should include. This type of test should elicit information on what students need to work on in the future.

The purpose of these tests is to place a student into a particular level or section of a language curriculum or school. The student’s performance on the test should indicate the point at which the student will find material neither too easy nor too difficult but appropriately challenging.

They measure the learner’s ability within a classroom lesson, a unit, or an entire curriculum. They also analyze the extent to which students have acquired language features that have already been taught.

They are designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language before taking a course and ultimate predicted success in that undertaking. These tests were ostensibly designed to apply to the classroom learning of any language.