Rules, terms and conditions

The below version of the Rules, Terms and Conditions of the BIE contest was updated on November 2, 2024.

1. Purpose of the test

The Best In English test shall encourage secondary school students to study English, motivate them to improve their language skills and help them with finding their level of English while comparing their test results with their peers and students from all around the world.

Based on that we strongly recommend all teachers to nominate only those students in the contest who studied and learnt the language by their own effort while investing energy and time in learning the English language at school or by themselves in their home non-English speaking country. The goal is to create even and fair conditions for all test participants.

Furthermore, it is requested that no student whose first language is English shall participate in a regular category of the BIE competition, as well as students who lived abroad in an English-speaking country for a longer time (more than 18 months) and students who come from a multilingual family that is using the English language for communicating within the family.

A student who does not comply with this paragraph shall either compete as an IB student under his School ID in category IB Schools (English Colleges or high schools) or/and while entering the test the student should mark an answer in the form field My English Language Background*. The answer, in this case, should be: "I'm not a native speaker, I've lived abroad in an English-speaking country for more than 18 consecutive months, and/or come from a multilingual family where English is being used on an everyday basis. I understand that I will compete in a separate category with students with a similar background. " Students with an answer: "I'm a native speaker. The English language is my mother tongue. " will be disqualified.

2. Who Can Join the Contest?

Each school must nominate at least 10 students (rule changed in 2023) to take part in Best In English (BIE or further referred to as Contest), in order to participate in the Contest. There is no maximum number of students who can participate from one school. Only secondary school students between 14-20 years of age are eligible to participate.

3. Who Organises the Contest?

The Organizer of the Contest is Institut rozvoje kompetencí, z.ú. (Institute for Competencies Development), a non-profit organization with its registered office at Rychnov u Jablonce nad Nisou 565, Postal Code 468 02, Czech Republic, ID No.: 04545401, registered with the Register of Institutes maintained by the Municipal Court in Prague under File No. U 70, www.inroko.org, Czech-us Studium v zahranici s.r.o., a student work and study abroad agency with its registered office at Prague 1 – Nové Město, Vodičkova 730/9, Postal Code 110 00, Czech Republic, ID No.: 02419386, registered with the Commercial Register maintained by the Municipal Court in Prague under File No. C 218282, www.czech-us.cz, Injoy agency s.r.o., a student work and study abroad agency with its registered office at Bratislava, Cintorínska 9, Postal Code 811 08, Slovak Republic, ID No.: 45 962 481, registered with the Commercial Register maintained by the District Court in Bratislava I under File No. 69360/B, www.injoy.sk, BHV Education (BHV.d.o.o.), a student agency with registered office at Martićeva 13/I, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, ID-Nr.: HR-AB-01-080125455, OIB: 59282437477, www.bhvedu.com, Evropské centrum jazykových zkoušek a Jazyková škola s právem státní jazykové zkoušky, s.r.o., www.elec.eu. For the further role of the Organizers, please refer to the Privacy clause section at the end of this document containing Privacy policy conditions as the Organizers act as well as Data Controllers according to GDPR.

4. The test

The Test is created by a team of English Language University teachers (Jan Eichler and his colleagues) under Czech-us agency, reviewed by Evropské centrum jazykových zkoušek a Jazyková škola s právem státní jazykové zkoušky, s.r.o., www.elec.eu and by Akcent International House Prague, akcent.cz

The maximum score an individual student can receive is 125 points. In case of equal scores received by two or more students or two or more schools (both further referred to as Competitor), the winner is determined by the best time under which the Test was completed.

The Test is divided into three parts, that is, grammar, reading, and listening. The level of the Test is based on the scale of B1 to C1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Majority of the content is set to the B2-B2+ level. Considering the Test is difficult, both knowledge-wise and time-wise, there is no need to worry if not completed or not knowing all the answers.

The Test will take place on November 21, 2024, the login into the test is possible between 9:00 till 14:00 CET (Central European Time – UTC +1:00). Your school’s ID was sent to you by email, after the registration to the Contest.

The link with the Test will be sent to the Teachers on November 20, 2024 and will appear on the BIE website. The time limit for the Test is 60 minutes and the timer starts after entering the Test. The test will close down after clicking on Submit the test or when the time elapses.

After accessing the Test for the first time, do not close the window nor refresh the page. If the Test is not available within 60 seconds after it is opened, do refresh the page by pressing the F5 button. Do not open any other windows or files during the Test. Using other devices and/or dictionaries is strictly forbidden. Do not talk to or chat with your classmates or anyone else. There are several security checks incorporated in the Test that are set to recognize any cheating attempts and suspicious keyboard and mouse movements.

All participating students from one school must take the Test at the same time under regular circumstances, which will be specified by the Teacher within the given starting timeframe (9:00 – 14:00 Central European Time). In case of using more classrooms, the Test must be initialized at the same time in all places within one school. A different scenario applies in case the school will be closed, quarantined, affected by a lockdown and/or some other measurement will be taking place.

A pedagogical supervision is requested at all times while the Test is being taken (offline or online).

5. Prizes

Prizes are updated on the bestinenglish.org website, section “Prizes”. It is strictly forbidden to exchange prizes for money or anything else. Prizes are non-transferable. The students have to claim the prize by February 28th 2025 at the latest.

6. Results

For schools, the highest average score is determined by the average result of the 10 best students from a particular school. That is, if a school nominated 50 students, only the results of the 10 best students will be considered to calculate the average score. The school with the highest average score wins, however in the case of the same score, the school with faster average completion time wins. Each school wishing to participate thus needs to nominate at least 10 students.

7. Software Conditions

The Test is optimized for the newest version of Google Chrome and also for mobile devices with OS Windows and Android. It was successfully tested on Firefox, Apple devices and macOS Mojave. However, some errors or failures of the system may occur for MS systems, like Microsoft EDGE featured some problems with the videos if not used with a full screen using F11 on the keyboard. Microsoft Explorer is not supported.
In general, all latest versions of OS are supported. It is quite possible that the Test will work on every device made ever since the year 2000.

Students are allowed to use their own devices, however, they still need to be supervised during the Test. Students will need headphones/earphones to use during the listening part of the Test. All devices should be wired using the Ethernet connection (UTP network cable), or through the wireless network (Wi-Fi). Please, do consult the options of connecting devices outside your school’s network with your IT specialist.

Please, do check and test all the devices you plan to use during the test, if possible. In order to check the speed of the Internet connection, it is recommended to run the 2023 Public version of the test on more devices at the same time. If the test should display some errors, please consult your IT specialist and/or get in touch with us.

8. Final results

Preliminary results will be announced on December 6, 2024. The individual final score of each student will be displayed right after the end of the Test. Full final results will be available on December 13, 2024 at the latest.

9. Test videos

Students can replay the video repeatedly, as needed. Every participant has to have their own headphones, to prevent the distraction of other students. It is not allowed to play music or watch / listen to any other content during the test. If the school internet traffic is overloaded by the time of the test and the student is unable to load videos/audio files the student can skip to his phone or some tablet eventually and enter the test using the same email address.

10. License fee conditions:

Participation in the Best in English contest comes with a License fee of 65EUR (1500CZK) per school.

Until 2019 the competition had been free of charge and supported only by a limited number of partners and sponsors with no government or EU funds. The main organization bearing the costs of the project has been our company, Czech-us agency. We would like to develop the contest further mainly when it comes to the technical aspects of the competition. We strongly believe this change will contribute to an increased quality of the BIE competition and the test itself. Introducing the License fee will serve for further BIE development.

Refund and cancellation policy in case:

your school will not join the test if we are notified 1 week prior to the contest at the latest
students will not be able to submit the test due to technical problems (less than 10 results will be submitted)
more than 40 per cent of the participating students will not receive a result due to technical problems (a list of the respective students needs to be provided on the day of the test)
not enough students participating in the test due to sickness (less than 10) - needs to be announced at least 1 week days prior to the contest
the license fee will be paid by a local agency, ministry of education or other entity for the school
the BIE contest 2024 will be cancelled by the organizer

In the abovementioned situations the License fee will be fully refunded to the corresponding school or can be applied to the school participation in the next BIE contest.

Form of License fee payment: either wire transfer or online using a debit/credit card. The license fee will be due after the school registration to the competition. More information will be provided upon registration.

11. Taking the BIE test in waves

There are several schools each year which have trouble squeezing all the students in one computer room or might have some technical issue before the competition launch. That is the reason why we have soften the competition rules as follows:

Students who will not be able to join the contest at the school premises will be allowed to access the test from their own device from outside the school. *More info below
Schools may join the test in 2-3 waves - there can be 2 groups of students from different classes/grades taking the test at different times (so that they don't mix up), like group 1 at 9:00, group 2 at 10:15. Please notify us about this situation so that we can grant you an exception.

* In case the student is not supervised by a teacher in person due to closed schools and will be taking the test alone and on his/her device, a distant learning tool is to be activated (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) by the teacher/s as used during regular online classes and the students will join the session together with the teacher/s. This way they will Log in (fill out log-in page) and launch the test while being supervised by the teacher through a web-camera which shall stay on during the test as well as the microphone. The teacher should make a list of the students opening the Online class session in order to have control of who was supervised during the test from the particular school. There might be trouble with the internet connection sometimes and running cameras may slow down the data flow, but it is advised to check the internet speed upfront and to keep students connected during the test.

12. Closing

The rules and terms and conditions are a possible subject to change and/or an update, if necessary. In case of any amendments made to the rules, and terms and conditions, all the participating schools will be notified by e-mail and a new version will be posted to the BIE website.

In case of any inquiries or should you have any questions, doubts, or problems with and/or during the Test, please do contact us via e-mail info@bestinenglish.org or call us on +420 777 879 192.

In case of emergency, the emergency contact details are considered to be the e-mail addresses provided by each Teacher to the Organizers at registration, and thus any communication will be dealt with via e-mail.

13. Privacy policy

The privacy policy is part of the rules and conditions of the contest. Complete privacy information is on this dedicated page.