Marlins Test for Seafarers

Marlins English Language Tests are job-oriented English tests that Marlins created for different sectors of shipping and offshore. The company was founded in 1994; it works with the cargo, cruise, superyacht and offshore fleets and has offices in the United Kingdom and Singapore.

There are three tests:

• ICS Marlins English Language Test for Seafarers — for seafarers of all levels, departments and specialisations;
• Marlins English Language Test for Offshore Workers — for offshore workers;
• Marlins English Language Test for Cruise Ship Staff — for hotel staff on cruise ships.

A merchant seafarer needs the first of them. ICS in its name is the International Chamber of Shipping, which has endorsed both this test and the oral Test of Spoken English. The IMO does not endorse specific products, but the test was developed by the same authors who worked on IMO Model Course 3.17 Maritime English.

The Marlins test checks language only. It does not assess professional competence and deliberately avoids the specialist vocabulary of particular ranks; STCW knowledge is tested by a different test, CES.

English on board is a requirement of the STCW Code. For an officer in charge of a navigational watch on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more, Table A-II/1 requires adequate knowledge of English to use charts and nautical publications and to understand meteorological information; for an officer in charge of an engineering watch, Table A-III/1 requires enough to use technical publications and to perform the engineer's duties. Marlins points out that STCW 95 already required officers of the watch to have English adequate for communication with other ships, coast stations and a multilingual crew. The Convention's requirements are only part of the question of why English matters to a seafarer in the first place.

Marlins is one way to check that level. According to the ICS, the test lets ship operators show that seafarers of any nationality have been assessed for their ability to communicate in English, a requirement reinforced by the ISM Code and the revised STCW Convention.

Who requires an English check:

• flag administrations — including the United Kingdom (MCA), Ireland, Australia and the Bahamas; the Marlins test itself, according to the Marlins list, is required or recognised by the UK MCA, Bermuda, Bulgaria, the British Virgin Islands and Ireland;
• shipping, cruise and offshore companies — when hiring and promoting.

Marlins will not tell you whether you need the test: the rules are set by the company, and Marlins only provides the tool. The test does not appear in the Ukrainian certification procedure — neither the Regulations on Ranks of Ship Officers nor the Rules for certification of ratings mention it. So ask your crewing agency or employer about the test.

The test for seafarers consists of 85 questions:

The result is calculated as an overall percentage; the recommended maximum time is 60 minutes. Questions are selected at random from a bank of several hundred, so no two tests are the same; the test suits any rank and nationality and is built on a maritime context.

The test for cruise ship staff is shorter — 50 questions without the pronunciation section, with up to 30 minutes recommended. The offshore test has a different breakdown of sections.

1. Register an account on marlinstests.com and buy a test; if a company pays for the test, its administrator allocates the licence code. Each test needs a separate code.
2. Enter your details carefully before you start: once the test is finished, you cannot change them yourself — this is how Marlins protects certificates from forgery. Only minor typos can be corrected later, and even then at OneOcean's discretion.
3. A code is valid for 12 months from purchase; a test once started must be finished within 36 hours.
4. During the test you can return to any question and change your answer. If the connection drops or the computer shuts down, the test resumes with the same code from the same place.
5. At the end, be sure to click "Finish": without it the result is not recorded. You can print the certificate straight afterwards.

The test does not work on a "pass/fail" basis. Marlins itself gives a benchmark — recommended minimum scores for the online test:

This is a Marlins recommendation, not a rule: flag administrations set their own figures. To endorse a foreign certificate of competency, the British MCA accepts as evidence of English, among other things, Marlins at an approved test centre together with the TOSE oral test or a company letter on spoken English; the MCA minimums are 90% for a master and a chief officer, 80% for a deck officer of the watch, a chief engineer and a second engineer, and 70% for an engineer officer of the watch and an ETO, which is higher than the recommended scores for most positions. Other acceptable evidence includes IELTS with an overall band of at least 6. According to Marlins, Saudi Aramco accepts approved Marlins tests and also looks at each section: for a master, a chief officer and a chief engineer — 80% overall and at least 70% in each section.

The final percentage is calculated from the sum of the section scores, not as an average of percentages. A Marlins example: one mistake in the time and numbers section (4 out of 5) and one in listening (24 out of 25) — counting only these two sections, you get 93% (28 out of 30), while an average of percentages would give 88%. So the sections with the most questions — grammar and listening — have the biggest effect on the result.

There are three types of certificate:

• standard — the test can be taken anywhere, without supervision or ID check;
• AI Proctored — only a company can buy this test; the candidate shows a photo ID to the camera, the webcam records the whole test, and the system tracks face, sound and screen;
• approved test centre certificate — the test is taken only at an Approved Test Centre, supervised from start to finish.

Only approved centres issue the approved centre certificate, and Marlins advises companies that hire through third-party crewing agencies to accept only this one. Some employers and flags may not accept the standard certificate, and it will not carry a stamp: only an approved centre stamps certificates.

The certificate has no expiry date — it shows only the test date. How many years to recognise it is decided by companies and flags; Marlins recommends four to five years.

Any certificate can be verified on marlinstests.com with a 16- or 20-character licence code; an approved centre certificate shows two green ticks. Verification protects against forgery attempts, which have occurred.

If the certificate is lost: if the test was bought by a company or crewing agency, ask them for a copy; if you took it at an approved centre, the centre stamps, signs and reissues the certificate.

All Marlins tests are taken on the marlinstests.com online platform: the test is bought there by bank card and taken online, so files called "Marlins test" on third-party websites are not the official test.

For a seafarer buying the test on their own, Marlins recommends taking it at an approved test centre: taking it privately online is possible, but the certificate will be a standard one. Approved centres follow standards agreed with the UK MCA; according to the Marlins website, there are more than 200 approved centres in dozens of countries. In Ukraine there are 11 such centres — in Odesa and Kyiv, and some of them accept only their own candidates. If you cannot get to an approved centre, Marlins advises agreeing other evidence of English with your employer.

In 2023, the online test cost 23 US dollars for seafarers and 40 for offshore workers. Marlins does not control the price of a test at an approved centre; each centre sets its own.

Start with the practice test on marlinstests.com: for seafarers, offshore and cruise staff it is available without a licence code, and Marlins strongly recommends taking it before the real test to get used to the question types.

Then go by the weight of the sections. Grammar (30 questions) and listening (25) make up most of the score: listen to radio exchanges, briefings and recordings with different accents. Time and numbers is only 5 questions, but in seafaring practice numbers mean positions, courses and times, where a single mistake costs a lot.

Find out the threshold before the test: Marlins recommends different minimums for a master and a cadet, and the British MCA requires more for most officer ranks.

Do not waste attempts at random. When to resit is decided by the flag and the company, and Marlins recommends no more than three attempts in 24 hours.

Questions are selected at random from a bank of hundreds, and no two tests are the same, so answers from the internet will not fully match your test. An approved test centre runs the test under supervision, and the recipient of the certificate can check it against the Marlins database with the licence code.

On the OneOcean platform these tests sit side by side, but they measure different things: Marlins — English for effective communication and safe work on board, CES — STCW knowledge and technical proficiency. The question bank, test types and the state examination score are covered in the article CES test for seafarers.