The IPT Oral Tests have several important advantages:

Student and Examiner Friendly
The oral test is a structured interview and the questions are straightforward, so it is easy for students to understand what to do. It is also examiner-friendly, in that there is a script for the examiner to follow and the expected responses are always defined either word for word or by describing the type of response that is expected, such as a particular grammatical structure or the language function. And each response is scored 0/1, so scoring is simple.

Standardized
The scripting, together with the rules for testing that are covered in this training, make the IPT standardized. It means that the test tasks and scoring criteria are always the same, regardless of who is giving the test and when. As the examiner, you have an important role in this. The way you give and score the test are part of the standardization and quality of the IPT. This is why it is very important that you follow the test administration rules and the examiner script exactly.

Practical
The examiner script and the scoring rules make the IPT easy to administer and score. And since you are scoring the test as you administer it, the results are available immediately.

Valid and Reliable
Validity has to do with the skills assessed in a test and the meaning of the test scores. Reliability is about how consistent the test is in giving the appropriate score to each student. Ballard & Tighe conducts studies every 5-8 years on very large groups of students who take the IPT. These norming studies provide up-to-date evidence of the reliability and validity of the tests, and the details of the studies are reported in Technical Manuals. When examiners follow standardized procedures in test administration and scoring, they ensure that this reliability and validity information applies to the tests they administer.