What Reddit Says About the Duolingo English Test (And What It Actually Means)

If you search Reddit for honest DET experiences, you find something interesting. The complaints repeat. Across threads, across countries, across language backgrounds — the same frustrations come up again and again. Not because the test is broken, but because most students are preparing the wrong way.

Here's what people are actually saying on Reddit about the Duolingo English Test — and what it tells you about how to prepare.

"My test got invalidated and I have no idea why"

This is one of the most common DET Reddit complaints. Students complete the full test, wait 48 hours, and receive a message saying their result couldn't be certified — often with no clear explanation. Glasses glare. A background app running. Eyes moving to the side while thinking. A phone slightly out of position.

The Duolingo English Test is proctored by AI that flags anything it can't verify. It doesn't know you were just thinking. It knows your eyes moved off screen, and it can't rule out that you were reading notes.

This isn't a DET problem. It's a preparation problem — specifically, not knowing the rules before you sit down. Before your test: do a full room scan practice, check your lighting, close every background application including ones that run automatically, and position your phone exactly as required. Our DET test setup checklist covers every technical requirement so you don't lose $70 to a fixable mistake.

"I've practiced for months and my production score won't move"

Production is the subscore combining speaking and writing. It's the most complained-about subscore on Reddit, every year. Students practice daily. They do mock test after mock test. The DET production score sits at 85 or 95 and doesn't move.

Here's why: practice tests show your current level. They don't change it.

If your production score is stuck, you're not repeating your way out of it. You're rehearsing your current limitations. The score isn't stuck because you haven't practiced enough — it's stuck because something in how you're producing language isn't working, and more practice just repeats that same something.

The most common culprits we see: speaking from translation rather than from images, using connectors and vocabulary you've memorized but don't fully understand, and running out of things to say after 20 seconds because you haven't trained extended production. See our complete DET preparation guide for how to actually move that score.

"I freeze during speaking and the timer runs out"

Almost universal. Students who can hold a conversation in English — even confident ones — hit the speaking timer and go blank. This is one of the most upvoted DET complaints on r/DuolingoEnglishTest and it shows up in nearly every experience thread.

This is not an English problem. It's a retrieval problem.

In normal conversation, you have context — the other person's words, the environment, the topic you're already in. The DET gives you a prompt and starts the timer. Your brain has to generate language from nothing, in a second language, under pressure.

Most students train by practicing answers to questions. That's the wrong thing to train. What you actually need is the ability to generate language from a visual stimulus — starting from what you see, not from what you want to say in your first language. When you practice image-first retrieval, the speaking timer stops being terrifying because you always have something to say: describe what's in front of you and build from there.

This is exactly what the DET speaking questions test. Speak About the Photo, Write About the Photo — the test gives you images because images bypass the translation habit. Train retrieval from images and you never freeze. Our DET Advantage course builds this skill across 120 meaning-first units.

"I used templates and connectors and my score went down"

This one surprises people. They followed the advice. They used "nevertheless," "furthermore," "in addition to." They structured responses correctly. The DET speaking score or writing score dropped anyway.

The DET is designed to catch this. It doesn't just check whether you used an advanced connector — it checks whether the connector made sense in context. "Nevertheless" signals contrast. If you're using it to continue a point rather than contradict one, the AI catches it. Every time.

The test was built by researchers who understood that IELTS and TOEFL could be gamed with templates. They built something specifically designed to punish that approach. The more sophisticated the memorized pattern, the more visible it is when used incorrectly.

The fix isn't better templates. It's understanding what you're actually saying. One student we worked with had been stuck for two months using "nevertheless" incorrectly in every speaking response — consistently, not occasionally. In the same session that we identified it, once he stopped reaching for memorized words and started building meaning from images, he ran the full 90-second speaking timer twice without stopping. The English was always there. The retrieval pathway just needed to be retrained.

"The test is way harder than I expected"

Students who've passed IELTS or scored well on TOEFL are sometimes surprised that the DET is harder for them. This is counterintuitive until you understand what the tests measure.

IELTS and TOEFL are format-heavy — once you know the structure, you can prepare efficiently for that structure. The DET is adaptive. It adjusts in real time. You can't out-prepare the format because the format is specifically designed to find your actual level regardless of how you've prepared.

What surprises people is that recognition skills — reading comprehension, listening comprehension — don't automatically translate into production skills. You can understand English perfectly and still struggle to produce it under time pressure. The DET measures both, and most DET prep resources focus almost entirely on the recognition side. For context on what score you need, see our DET passing score guide.

"I retook it twice and got the same score"

The second most common Reddit DET complaint, right after invalidations.

If you got 100 on your first attempt and 98 on your second, the test isn't being inconsistent — you are. Your underlying ability hasn't changed between attempts. The DET is reliable precisely because it finds your real level each time.

Retaking without changing your preparation is expensive and predictable. The score will land in the same range because your English production is in the same place. For a full breakdown of what retakes actually cost versus investing in preparation that changes the result, see our DET cost guide.

What the prep platforms won't tell you

Most DET prep platforms are built around a simple idea: more practice questions = higher score. For students who just need format familiarity, that works. But it's not what Reddit is asking about.

Reddit is full of students who have done the practice questions. They know the format. Their DET score isn't moving. And the advice they get — do more practice questions, use more advanced vocabulary, study harder — is the exact same advice that got them stuck.

The problem isn't practice volume. It's that practice tests measure your level without changing it. What changes your level is training the underlying cognitive skill — meaning-first production, retrieval from images, understanding connectors well enough to use them correctly under pressure.

That's what DET Advantage's 120 meaning-first units are built to do. Each unit is structured around real English in context — not question banks, not vocabulary lists. You build the network that makes production automatic, which is the only thing that moves a stuck production score. AI feedback and live sessions mean that when you're doing what most Reddit users describe — reaching for the wrong word out of habit — someone catches it before the test does.

If you want to know exactly where your gap is before you start, our free 25-minute diagnostic tells you specifically what's holding your score back — retrieval speed, meaning accuracy, connector misuse, or something else.

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