Agreed... a test that aims to be as broadly applicable as possible should accommodate as many variations and common problems as possible. It may be the difference between 20 million people taking it and 20.3 million, but for that .3 million it's incredibly important.
Yes probably needs the ability to do an oral Viva - funnily enough one of my uncles did that at Oxford back in the 50's for his MA as his writing was so bad :-)
