FAQ
The questions people actually ask. Answered without spin.
Including the ones a sales page would skip: how accurate is it, can it make things up, and why not just use a chatbot.
Scores and honesty
- Is the score an official IELTS result?
- No. Every band in the app is a practice estimate and is labelled as one, next to the number, in every mode. YNova is not affiliated with IELTS, IDP, the British Council or Cambridge, and nothing here predicts your real result.
- How accurate are the estimates?
- We do not know yet, and we will not pretend to. The scoring is a prompted baseline that has not been calibrated against examiner marks. The study that would tell us is designed and listed on the research page. Until it reports, treat the number as a direction, and the feedback under it as the useful part.
- Can NOVA hallucinate a score?
- It can try. That is why the model's output is not trusted. Every quoted example must appear word for word in your transcript, no criterion gets a band without enough evidence, the overall band is computed by code rather than by the model, and a report that fails its checks is repaired once and then issued as partial, with criteria marked not assessed. The full method is on the scoring page.
- Does NOVA write my answer for me?
- Not from nothing. In training, the first step asks for your ideas, and NOVA turns those into a draft in English; a sample answer built from the same ideas can be revealed later. NOVA is forbidden from inventing your facts, and the recording that counts at the end of a round has to be your own English. The point is to find your English for your ideas, not to hand you someone else's.
- Why is pronunciation shown differently?
- Because it comes from a different place. Pronunciation is estimated from the audio only, by a separate path, and is labelled an AI estimate. A transcript can never produce a pronunciation band. If a recording is too short, too quiet or mostly silence, pronunciation is simply not assessed.
Using NOVA
- Why not just use ChatGPT?
- You can, and for open conversation it is good. What it will not do: run Part 2 with one minute to prepare and two to speak, hear your pronunciation, tie every comment to a quote from what you actually said, refuse to score what it cannot see, give you a report your teacher can mark, or bring back the phrase you got wrong on the day you are about to forget it. NOVA is narrow on purpose.
- What languages does it support?
- The interface runs in 20 languages. NOVA recognises 33 first languages for hints and explanations. A few Indian languages use your phone's own voice for read-aloud rather than NOVA's, because the speech service does not cover them yet.
- Does the first-language support switch off as I improve?
- You decide. A slider sets how much support you want, from minimal to heavy, and NOVA keeps to it. Immersive mode is English only. Support does not fade on its own today; we say that plainly because an earlier version of this site implied it did.
- How long is a session?
- Practice scenarios run two or five minutes, one part of the test at a time, and a live session ends after eight minutes at most. A Part 2 round is one minute to prepare and up to two minutes to speak. Training rounds are shorter steps: ideas, vocabulary, sentences, a talk-through, then a 30-second answer.
- Does it work on a cheap phone or a slow connection?
- It runs in the phone's browser, with nothing to install. Recordings that cannot upload are queued and retried. Live conversation with NOVA needs a connection while you speak; reports and review work with an intermittent one.
Price
- What does it cost?
- The free plan is free, with no card. Pro is about NZ$35 a month with a 7-day trial; the exact amount is shown in your currency at checkout, and you can cancel any time. Mock tests need Pro. In China, prepaid 30- and 90-day passes are available instead of a subscription. Details on the pricing page.
Privacy and teachers
- What happens to my recordings?
- They are stored privately, in your own account space, and deleted after 90 days. The feedback summary stays. Recordings are processed by the speech and language services we use to score them, and the privacy policy names every one.
- What does my teacher see?
- Joining a class is a consent step: you are shown exactly what the teacher will be able to see before you accept, which is your practice, training and mock evidence from the last 90 days. You can unshare any single attempt afterwards. Your private conversations with NOVA, and anything you tell it about how you feel, are never visible to a teacher.
- Does NOVA mark my work for the teacher?
- No. NOVA drafts a comment from your evidence and the teacher's own bands. The teacher edits it, or discards it, and only the teacher can return a mark.
- How old do I have to be?
- Sixteen or over, as set out in the privacy policy.
- Can I delete my account or get my data?
- Yes. Today both requests go by email to support@ynova.ai, and we act on them by hand. Self-serve deletion and export are on the list.
The company
- When do TOEFL and PTE open?
- They are not built yet. Which comes first will be decided by demand on the two waitlists, and the waitlist hears first. We do not publish dates we have not committed to.
- Which AI models do you use?
- Google Gemini for the live conversation and for judging against the rubric, ElevenLabs for speech to text and text to speech, and a self-hosted open-source acoustic model for pronunciation. Production reports are never generated by preview models, and every report records which model and prompt version produced it.
- Are you affiliated with IELTS, TOEFL or PTE?
- YNova is an educational practice platform. Scores in the app are practice estimates, not official results. IELTS, TOEFL and PTE are trademarks of their respective owners; YNova is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, IDP, the British Council, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, ETS or Pearson. We do not provide immigration or legal advice.
Still have a question?
Email us. A person answers, usually within a working day.
Scores in the app are practice estimates, not official results.