Every Exam.
One Complete Guide.

A(

A-Level (CAIE)

Cambridge International Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Level

Pick individual subjects rather than a fixed bundle, and carry the result into universities across more than 160 countries

AB

Abitur

Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife)

Germany's general university entrance qualification, where doubling the weight of two chosen advanced subjects — not raw exam difficulty — decides most of the final grade

AC

ACSEE

Advanced Certificate of Secondary Education Examination

Tanzania's A-level exam, where a student's Form 5-6 subject combination — locked in as a fixed three-subject bundle like PCM or HGL — shapes their entire university trajectory more than any single paper

AC

ACT

American College Testing

Now under ETS ownership after a 2026 acquisition, the enhanced ACT trimmed its question count and made Science fully optional

AP

AP

Advanced Placement Program (AP)

College-level courses and exams taken in high school, aimed at real college credit rather than just admissions polish

AT

ATAR

Australian Tertiary Admission Rank

Australia's nationally comparable tertiary admission ranking used by universities and other tertiary institutions to rank applicants

BA

BAC

Baccalauréat

France's secondary-school leaving exam and default university gateway, where continuous assessment now counts for 40% of the final grade

B(

BAC (Algeria)

Baccalauréat Algérien (شهادة البكالوريا)

Algeria's national secondary-leaving exam, compressed into just four to five days each June yet the single number that steers every graduate's university placement

B(

BAC (Romania)

Bacalaureat (Romanian Baccalaureate)

Romania's leaving exam, split between pass/fail competence assessments that don't count for admission and a separate written module that alone decides university placement

BE

BECE

Basic Education Certificate Examination

West Africa's junior-secondary exit exam, where a full 30% of the final grade comes from three years of school-based continuous assessment rather than the external written papers alone

BE

BEHS

Basic Education High School Examination (Myanmar Matriculation Examination)

Myanmar's grade-10 matriculation exam that decides university entry across the country

CA

CAE

Cambridge English: Advanced (C1 Advanced)

A Cambridge qualification that never expires, pitched at the C1 level most universities and employers actually ask for

CA

CAT

Common Admission Test

The single sitting that decides IIM admission for the entire year, where 99th-percentile is treated as a real dividing line rather than an arbitrary round number

CB

CBC

Competency-Based Curriculum Assessment System

Kenya's ongoing shift away from one-off exams — a national assessment at Grade 9 where 60% of the score comes from the national test itself, but the remaining 40% is built from a student's Grade 6 assessment and years of school-based cohort evaluation

CE

CELPE-Bras

Certificado de Proficiência em Língua Portuguesa para Estrangeiros

Brazil's official Portuguese proficiency certificate, built around a single integrated exam that produces one of four certification levels rather than a level a candidate registers for in advance

CE

CELPIP

Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program

Canada's own English test, built around Canadian English and accepted directly by IRCC for immigration and citizenship

CE

CEPA

Common Educational Proficiency Assessment

The UAE's original placement test, still used to sort students into the right level of foundation English or Math coursework rather than to rank them for admission itself

CE

CESS

Certificat d'Enseignement Secondaire Supérieur (Belgian French Community Upper Secondary Certificate)

Belgium's French Community secondary-leaving certificate, historically awarded by a school's own teaching staff judgment rather than a fixed national exam score — only recently gaining a partly centralized exam layer

CI

CILS

Certificazione di Italiano come Lingua Straniera

The University for Foreigners of Siena's Italian certificate, where all five assessed components — including a distinct grammar-structures skill most language exams fold into other sections — must each independently reach sufficiency

CL

CLAT

Common Law Admission Test

The single pen-and-paper gate into India's 25 National Law Universities, deliberately reading-heavy rather than knowledge-heavy since its 2020 redesign

CP

CPE

Cambridge English: Proficiency (C2 Proficiency)

The top rung of Cambridge's English ladder — proof of near-native mastery that few programs actually require but none will ever question

C/

CSAT / SSLE

College Scholastic Ability Test

South Korea's national standardized college entrance examination used as a major component of university selection

CU

CUET

Common University Entrance Test (Undergraduate)

The single test that replaced dozens of separate university entrance processes, letting a candidate pick any subject regardless of what they studied in Class 12

DA

DALF

Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française

The advanced-tier French diploma that picks up where DELF leaves off, where C1 already requires defending a documented argument from multiple source texts

DE

DELE

Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera

Spain's lifetime-valid Spanish diploma, issued by the Instituto Cervantes on behalf of the Ministry of Education, with a 60% pass threshold enforced per skill group rather than as one blended average

DE

DELF

Diplôme d'Études en Langue Française

France's lifetime-valid French certificate for beginner-to-upper-intermediate levels, where a candidate needs 50 overall but no less than 5 out of 25 in any single skill

DE

DET

Duolingo English Test

A one-hour, take-from-anywhere English test that costs less than a textbook and returns a score in about 48 hours

DM

DM

Državna matura (Croatian State Matura)

Croatia's state leaving exam, where each compulsory subject can be sat at a genuinely different difficulty level — A (higher) or B (basic) — letting a student's own choice of level, not just subject, shape university eligibility

DS

DSH

Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang

The university-administered German entry test where a DSH-2 certificate from one participating school is accepted at every other German university, no re-checking required

DZ

DZI

Държавни зрелостни изпити (Bulgarian State Matriculation Exams)

Bulgaria's leaving exam, unusually minimal among European matriculation systems — just one compulsory subject, Bulgarian Language and Literature, plus a single subject of the student's own choosing

E/

EBAU / Selectividad

University Entrance Examination — currently Prueba de Acceso a la Universidad (PAU), historically known as Selectividad — under the 2016-2024 framework EBAU/EvAU, depending on region

Spain's nationwide framework for assessing access to university after upper-secondary education

EG

ECZ Grade 12

Zambia School Certificate (Grade 12 Examination)

Zambia's leaving exam, where a student can sit up to nine subjects but only their best six — English compulsory among them — actually count toward the School Certificate result

EG

EGE

Unified State Examination

Russia's standardized state examination that serves as the main school-leaving assessment and a principal route into higher education

EJ

EJU

Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students

Japan's standardised admission examination assessing international students' Japanese-language proficiency and academic preparation

EM

EmSAT

Emirates Standardized Test — Achieve

The UAE's degree-readiness achievement test across seven subjects — mandatory for Grade 12 students until a November 2024 policy change made it voluntary, though many universities still weigh it heavily

EN

ENEM

Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio

Brazil's national high school exam used for university admission

EN

ENES

Exames Nacionais do Ensino Secundário (Portuguese National Secondary Education Exams)

Portugal's national exams, which don't determine university admission alone — the final applied score blends them with a student's three-year internal school average, weighted differently by every program

ÉR

Érettségi

Érettségi Vizsga (Hungarian School-Leaving Examination)

Hungary's national school-leaving exam used to certify completion of secondary education and support admission to higher education

E/

EUEE / ESSLE

Ethiopian University Entrance Examination / Secondary School Leaving Examination

Ethiopia's national university-entrance assessment and former university-entry examination pathway, transitioning from EUEE to the Secondary School Leaving Examination

EX

EXANI-II

Examen Nacional de Ingreso a la Educación Superior (EXANI-II)

Mexico's higher-education entrance assessment measuring academic skills and discipline-specific knowledge

FM

FMGE

Foreign Medical Graduate Examination

The licensing screen for Indians who studied medicine abroad, unlimited attempts allowed but a genuinely tough 50% bar that most first-timers don't clear

GA

G.C.E. A/L

General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (Sri Lanka)

Sri Lanka's fully domestic, stream-based national exam whose Z-score decides university admission through a district-quota system

GA

Gaokao

National College Entrance Examination

China's national college entrance examination and one of the country's principal higher-education selection mechanisms

GA

GAT

General Aptitude Test (القدرات - Qudurat)

Saudi Arabia's reasoning test — verbal and quantitative aptitude with no curriculum content at all, the deliberate opposite number to the country's own subject-based NAT

GA

GATE

Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering

The one exam that opens two entirely different doors — IIT/IISc postgraduate admission and PSU management-trainee recruitment — off a single sitting valid for three years

GM

GMAT

Graduate Management Admission Test (Focus Edition)

The business-school test built for a data-driven MBA application, cut to 2 hours 15 minutes with data literacy front and center

GO

Goethe-Zertifikat

Goethe-Zertifikat

Germany's cultural-institute German certification, spanning all six CEFR levels from complete beginner through near-native mastery

GR

GRE

Graduate Record Examinations

One test accepted by nearly every kind of graduate program — general master's degrees, PhDs, and a growing share of MBA programs alike

GS

GST

General, Science and Technology Integrated Admission System / GST Admission Test

Bangladesh's integrated undergraduate admission test for participating public general, science and technology universities

HS

HSK

Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (Chinese Proficiency Test)

China's standardized Mandarin proficiency test, mid-transition from its established six-level scale to a nine-level HSK 3.0 framework rolling out through 2026

HS

HSKK

Hanyu Shuiping Kouyu Kaoshi (HSK Speaking Test)

The companion oral exam HSK itself never includes, recorded rather than face-to-face, and priced and leveled on its own separate track from the six-level HSK it complements

ID

IB DP

International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

A two-year pre-university curriculum and final assessment combined, not a standalone test — the diploma itself is the credential

IE

IELTS

International English Language Testing System

The world's most-taken English test, split into an Academic version for university and a General Training version for migration and work

IM

IMAT

International Medical Admissions Test

The single national entrance exam for English-taught medicine and dentistry degrees at Italian public universities

IE

IOE Entrance

Institute of Engineering Entrance Examination (BE/B.Arch Entrance Examination)

The competitive merit-ranking gateway into Tribhuvan University's engineering and architecture programs

JA

JEE Advanced

Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced)

The exclusive gateway to India's 23 IITs, open only to the top 2.5 lakh JEE Main finishers and capped at two attempts in two consecutive years

JM

JEE Main

Joint Entrance Examination Main

India's gateway to the NITs, IIITs, and CFTIs, and the mandatory qualifying stage before JEE Advanced opens the door to the IITs

JL

JLPT

Japanese-Language Proficiency Test

Japan's five-level proficiency test, where clearing the overall passing mark isn't enough — every single section has its own separate floor that alone can fail an otherwise strong candidate

JP

JPUE

Japan University Examination

A Japanese-language-free written and interview exam that lets international students enter Japanese universities directly in their own language

KC

KCSE

Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education

Kenya's outgoing Form 4 leaving exam — a single decisive exam day the country is actively phasing out in favor of CBC's multi-year, continuity-based assessment model

LC

Leaving Cert

Leaving Certificate

Ireland's senior-cycle examination and national qualification used for progression to further and higher education

LN

LNAT

Law National Aptitude Test

The shared admissions test for nine UK law schools, where an unscored essay still carries real weight because admissions tutors read it directly

LS

LSAT

Law School Admission Test

The near-universal gateway to U.S. and Canadian law school, now fully digital with Logic Games permanently retired

MA

Matura

Egzamin maturalny (Polish Matriculation Examination)

Poland's matriculation exam, where clearing just 30% on each compulsory subject is enough to pass — university admission runs on raw subject percentages instead of one combined average

M(

Matura (Austria)

Reifeprüfung, commonly called Matura

Austria's centrally standardized school-leaving exam, built around three separate pillars — a mini-thesis, written papers, and oral exams — administered federally rather than state by state

M(

Matura (Slovakia)

Maturitná skúška (Slovak Matura)

Slovakia's mandatory secondary-school leaving exam, split into an externally set written half and a school-run oral half

M(

Matura (Switzerland)

Eidgenössisch anerkannte Maturität (Swiss Federal Matura)

Switzerland's federally recognized gymnasium leaving certificate, granting direct entry to every Swiss university with no separate entrance exam

MA

Maturita

Maturitní zkouška (Czech Maturita Examination)

The Czech Republic's leaving exam, split cleanly between a nationally standardized common part run by one testing agency and a school-designed profile part that can look genuinely different from one Czech secondary school to the next

MC

MCAT

Medical College Admission Test

The longest standardized admissions test in wide use — over 7.5 hours seated, testing four years of science and reasoning in a single sitting

MD

MDCAT

Medical and Dental College Admission Test

Pakistan's single mandatory gateway into MBBS and BDS, where the test score is fused into a fixed merit formula with FSc marks rather than standing alone

NA

NAT

National Achievement Test (تحصيلي - Tahsili)

Saudi Arabia's curriculum-content exam, testing three full years of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and English — the deliberate content-based counterpart to the country's own reasoning-only GAT

NB

NBT

National Benchmark Tests

South Africa's university-readiness test, sat alongside — never instead of — the NSC matric, specifically to catch academic potential the school-leaving exam alone might miss

NC

NCEA

National Certificate of Educational Achievement

New Zealand's main senior-secondary qualification, combining internally and externally assessed work and providing a pathway to tertiary education

NP

NEET PG

National Eligibility cum Entrance Test — Postgraduate

The single gate into every MD, MS, and PG Diploma seat in India, run by a different body than its undergraduate counterpart and structured around five strictly sequential, non-revisitable sections

NU

NEET UG

National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate)

India's single unified gateway to every MBBS, BDS, and AYUSH seat nationwide — and, in 2026, an exam year marked by a paper leak that forced an unprecedented re-exam

NM

NMAT

NMAT by GMAC

The rare Indian management exam where a candidate gets three tries in one season and only the best of the three actually counts

NM

NMT

National Multi-subject Test (Національний мультипредметний тест)

Ukraine's wartime replacement for ZNO, testing three separate subjects — Ukrainian, Mathematics, and History of Ukraine — in a single combined 90-minute sitting rather than three separate exam days

NS

NSC

National Senior Certificate

South Africa's matric exam, where the required Life Orientation subject counts toward passing but gets specifically excluded from the Admission Points Score universities actually use for admission

PA

Panhellenics

Panhellenic Examinations

Greece's national higher-education entrance examination system used both for university admission and as a major achievement milestone for higher education

PL

PLAB

Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board Test

The UK's professional and clinical assessment route for eligible international medical graduates seeking medical registration

PA

PTE Academic

Pearson Test of English Academic

A fully AI-scored English test built for speed — no human examiner, no essay-grading queue, results in as little as 48 hours

S1

Saber 11

Examen de Estado de la Educación Media (Saber 11)

Colombia's standardized exam for students completing secondary education, used to support higher-education admission

SA

SAT

Scholastic Assessment Test

College Board's fully digital, adaptive admissions test — an hour shorter than its paper predecessor and scored the same 400-1600 way

SE

SEE

Secondary Education Examination

Nepal's national Grade 10 school-leaving benchmark that opens the door to +2 education

SI

SIELE

Servicio Internacional de Evaluación de la Lengua Española

Instituto Cervantes' fully digital Spanish test, taken on a candidate's own chosen date rather than a handful of fixed worldwide sittings, with results back in about three weeks

A(

A-Level (Singapore)

Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Advanced Level

Singapore's own H1/H2/H3-tiered national exam, built around a compulsory General Paper and Project Work that feed directly into local university admission

SN

SNAP

Symbiosis National Aptitude Test

A 60-minute, 60-question sprint held on three separate dates each year, where — like NMAT — only a candidate's best sitting actually counts

SN

SNBT

Seleksi Nasional Berdasarkan Tes

Indonesia's fully computer-based national scholastic test that measures reasoning and literacy rather than memorized subject content, feeding one shared ranking into every state university

ST

STPM

Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (Malaysian Higher School Certificate)

Malaysia's A-Level-equivalent pre-university qualification, sat in stages across roughly 18 months

ST

STX

Studentereksamen (Danish Higher General Examination Programme)

Denmark's three-year academic upper-secondary track, where a national lottery — not the student or the school — decides which specific subjects actually get a final exam

SW

SweSAT

Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test (Högskoleprovet)

Sweden's national aptitude test providing an additional selection route to bachelor's-level higher education

TC

TCF

Test de Connaissance du Français

France's numeric-scale French test, run in several purpose-built variants — the Canada version alone converts to Canada's own NCLC immigration benchmark

TE

TestDaF

Test Deutsch als Fremdsprache

Germany's standardized university-entry German test, reported as four separate section grades rather than one overall score

TG

TGAT

Thai General Aptitude Test

A three-part Thai aptitude test split into Growth Mindset, English Communication, and Logical Thinking, sat alongside separate TPAT subject tests inside a multi-round national admissions portfolio

TA

Thanaweya Amma

Egyptian General Secondary Education Certificate (الثانوية العامة)

Egypt's make-or-break secondary exam, where a single decimal point in a student's aggregate percentage can decide which university faculty they're allowed to enter

TI

TISSNET

Tata Institute of Social Sciences National Entrance Test

No longer a standalone exam since the 2025-26 cycle — TISS now shortlists most MA programs through CUET PG and three management programs through CAT

TM

TMUA

Test of Mathematics for University Admission

The UK maths admissions test that fully absorbed Oxford's MAT after 2025, now the shared gateway into Maths, Computer Science, and Economics at Cambridge, Imperial, Warwick, and beyond

TT

TN THPT

Kỳ thi tốt nghiệp Trung học Phổ thông (National High School Graduation Examination)

Vietnam's dual-purpose national exam, where a single sitting decides both whether a student graduates high school and how they rank for university admission

TI

TOEFL iBT

Test of English as a Foreign Language, Internet-Based Test

ETS's academic English test, rebuilt from the ground up in January 2026 into a 90-minute, CEFR-aligned exam

TO

TOPIK

Test of Proficiency in Korean

Korea's official Korean proficiency test, run at a pace unmatched by most language exams — up to six domestic sittings a year, with a separate speaking track added on its own schedule

TO

TORFL

Test of Russian as a Foreign Language

Russia's official proficiency test, sat over two separate days, where a candidate can retest just the specific subtest they failed rather than the whole exam again

TB

Tunisian Bac

Baccalauréat Tunisien (الباكالوريا)

Tunisia's national leaving exam, unusual among Francophone Bac systems for pairing an oral component with every single subject rather than a handful of language exams alone

UA

UACE

Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education

Uganda's A-level exam, where students study just three or four subjects in real depth over two years — a narrower academic focus than most comparable African A-level systems ask for

UC

UCAT

University Clinical Aptitude Test

The near-universal gateway to UK medical and dental school since BMAT's 2023 discontinuation, now down to four scored subtests after Abstract Reasoning was retired

UE

UEC

Unified Examination Certificate

The Chinese independent school system's own certificate exam, internationally accepted but not officially recognized by Malaysia's public universities

UN

UNT

Unified National Testing

Kazakhstan's national standardized test used primarily for admission to higher-education institutions and government-funded university places

UP

UPCAT

University of the Philippines College Admission Test

The single-system entrance test that decides who gets a seat inside the University of the Philippines

US

USMLE

United States Medical Licensing Examination

The United States' three-step licensing examination required for eligible medical graduates to become licensed physicians

U/

UTME / JAMB

Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination

Nigeria's university entrance exam — entirely computer-based since 2015, and a genuinely separate hurdle from WASSCE rather than a continuation of it

VI

Vitnemål

Vitnemål for videregående opplæring (Norwegian Certificate of Upper Secondary Education)

Norway's upper-secondary leaving certificate, built almost entirely from three years of ongoing coursework grades rather than one decisive final exam day

WA

WASSCE

West African Senior School Certificate Examination

One exam, five countries — WASSCE is standardized identically across The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, with the same A1-to-F9 grading scale applying no matter which of the five a candidate sits in

W(

WASSCE (Ghana)

West African Senior School Certificate Examination — Ghana

Ghana's own administration of the shared West African exam, sat by a dramatically larger and more diverse cohort since the country's 2017 Free Senior High School policy removed tuition fees nationwide

XA

XAT

Xavier Aptitude Test

The management entrance exam with a genuine skip penalty — leave more than 8 questions blank and each additional omission starts costing marks too

YK

YKS

Yükseköğretim Kurumları Sınavı (Higher Education Institutions Examination)

Türkiye's national higher-education entrance and placement examination system

YT

YTL

Ylioppilastutkinto (Finnish Matriculation Examination)

The world's oldest continuously running matriculation exam, graded not against a fixed percentage but on a curve — a fixed share of every subject's candidates get each of seven Latin-named grades no matter how the cohort actually performs

ZA

ZIMSEC A-Level

Zimbabwe General Certificate of Education Advanced Level

Zimbabwe's A-level exam, where most candidates sit just three subjects — narrower even than Uganda's three-or-four-subject UACE — plus a distinctly graded English for Communication paper scored on its own separate 1-to-9 scale