Independent guide · Marlins English Language Test for Seafarers
How to pass the Marlins test what the test rewards, section by section
The Marlins test is not a test of seamanship. It is a test of understanding English in the situations you meet on board — a call from the engine room, a notice on the mess-room door, a time read over the radio. Most candidates lose their marks in what they hear, not in what they read. This guide shows what each section rewards, the mistakes that cost the most points, and a study plan for two weeks or six.
A computer-based test of maritime English, used by crewing agencies and shipowners before a contract. Written questions only; the spoken interview is a separate test, the TOSE.
Length
85 questions. Marlins' page says there is "no time limit" but a "recommended maximum time" of 60 minutes — about 42 seconds per question. The recordings cannot be hurried, so the text questions get less than that.
Sections and points
25 Listening comprehension · 9 Different sounds and pronunciation · 30 Grammar · 15 Vocabulary · 5 Time and numbers · 1 Reading task, worth several points. Every point counts the same in the final score.
How it is scored
One overall percentage, calculated from the points of all sections together — not the average of the section percentages. A weak section pulls the total down in proportion to its size, which is why Listening matters most.
What counts as passing
Marlins does not set a pass mark. Each company and flag state asks for its own score by rank; Marlins publishes a recommended minimum per rank, from 45 % to 85 %. See the score by rank.
How long to prepare
Honest range: two weeks of daily practice if your English is already B1–B2 and you only need the test format; six to eight weeks if your listening is weak; longer if you still translate word by word in your head.
Format and scoring as published by Marlins on its About the tests page and its help centre. Formats can change: check the current page before your test date.
01What the Marlins test really rewards
Five skills, in this order of weight: understanding spoken English quickly (34 of the 85 questions have audio), shipboard grammar (the tenses and prepositions of a handover or a permit to work), ship vocabulary (the word used on board, not the dictionary's first meaning), times and numbers read the way they are spoken on a bridge, and reading notices — a short text about a drill, a port call or a company rule.
What it does not reward: knowing COLREGs, engine types or cargo rules. The context is maritime, but the question is always about the English. A cadet with good English will score higher than a chief officer who reads well but cannot follow a fast British speaker. And there is no writing and no speaking in the written test: you never type a sentence, only a number in the dictation items. Speaking is assessed in the separate Test of Spoken English, if your employer asks for it.
This changes how you prepare: a month of grammar rules helps 30 questions; a month of daily listening helps 34 — and it is the part most people never practise.
02Listening comprehension (25 questions): the two-plays rule
Each recording can be played twice — that is how Marlins' own free practice test works, and what to plan for on the day — and you cannot go faster than the audio. That gives you a fixed method.
Read the question and the options before you press play. You then know what to listen for — a time, a reason, an instruction — instead of trying to remember everything.
First play: understand the situation. Who is speaking to whom, where, and what is the problem? Do not choose yet unless the answer is obvious.
Second play: confirm the detail. Now listen only for the piece the question asks about. Check that the option you like is really said, not just possible.
Choose and move on. If you are still not sure, pick the option you heard evidence for and come back later if there is time.
Two traps that cost more marks than difficult words
The option you never heard. Wrong options are written to sound natural on a ship — "stop the engine", "call the agent" — but the recording never says them. If you cannot remember the moment the speaker said it, it was not said. The reviewers who solved our bank without the answer key flagged exactly this pattern as the most common reason for a wrong pick: the candidate chooses what a sailor would do, not what this speaker did.
The answer that repeats the recording word for word. The right option rarely does. It says the same thing with other words: "take it off the board" becomes "take one generator out of service". An option that copies the exact words of the audio is often the distractor.
Example, written by us · fictional vessel
Chief engineer: "Bridge, this is the chief. We've got high exhaust temperatures on number two generator. I'm going to take it off the board for about an hour — numbers one and three will carry the load." Officer of the watch: "Understood, Chief. Call me when it's back on line."
What does the chief engineer want to do?
a Stop the ship for about an hour
b Take one generator out of service for a short time
c Run all three generators together
b. Option a borrows "an hour" from the audio but "stop the ship" is never said. Option c is the opposite of what happens. The right answer rewords "take it off the board" — nothing in it repeats the recording.
03Different sounds and pronunciation (9 questions)
Nine questions, nine points — the same weight as the whole Time and numbers section plus four Grammar questions. They test whether you can tell apart words that sound almost the same. The pairs that cost the most marks on a ship:
fifteen / fifty, thirteen / thirty, fourteen / forty — the classic, and the most expensive: a wrong one changes a course, a depth or a channel.
ship / sheep, live / leave, fill / feel — short i against long ee.
port / pot, cord / cod — the long or against a short o; in a British voice the r is not pronounced, so mainly the length tells them apart.
berth / birth, bow / bough, weigh / way — same sound, different word: only the sentence tells you which.
can / can't — in British English "can't" has a long ah, and the t often disappears.
The -TEEN / -TY trick. In fifteen the stress falls on the second syllable and the ee is long: fif-TEEN. In fifty the stress is on the first syllable and the ending is short and quick: FIF-ty. Listen for where the voice pushes, not for the last consonant — the n is easy to miss over engine noise or a cheap headset.
You cannot train this section with text. Reading "fifteen / fifty" on a page teaches you nothing your ear does not already know. Practise with audio, answer, then read the transcript to see what you missed. Our Listening unit has 410 recordings, the different-sounds items among them, and the simulation draws nine of those as the test does.
04Grammar (30 questions): the tenses of a handover
The biggest section, and the one you can improve fastest, because the same six or seven points come back again and again. Most items are a sentence with a gap and four options; a few ask you to put words in order, with the first and last word already fixed.
What comes back most
Present perfect against past simple.since and for with a period that continues → present perfect ("has been on board since March"); ago or a finished time → past simple ("joined three months ago").
Past continuous only for the interrupted action. "We were loading when the rain started" — the long action takes the continuous, the short one that interrupts takes past simple. Two past simples in a row is the usual wrong pick.
Prepositions of the ship.on board, at anchor, alongside, in port, under way, on deck, in the engine room, at the gangway. Learn them as fixed phrases, not as rules.
Modals of obligation.must, have to, should, mustn't, don't have to. The distractors are usually errors of form: "must to wear", "should to check", "have wear". If an option adds to after must or should, it is wrong.
will against going to. A decision made now, or a promise → will ("I'll call the bridge"); a plan already made → going to ("we're going to bunker in Rotterdam").
Question forms. The auxiliary comes first: "Did the pilot arrive?", "Has the surveyor finished?" — not "The pilot arrived?".
Plural after a department or a crew. British English often says "the crew are on deck", "the engine department have finished". Do not mark it wrong: on this test, it is normal.
Mini-example 1
The second engineer ____ on board since March. is · was · has been has been — since plus a period that still continues.
Mini-example 2
We ____ the containers when the crane alarm went off. loaded · were loading · are loading were loading — the long action, interrupted by the alarm.
Mini-example 3
All crew ____ wear a helmet on the mooring deck. must · must to · have must — must to is not English, and have needs to.
The word-order task
You get a first word, a last word and five or six chunks to put between them. The tactic: find the subject and the verb first and place them; then the object; then the groups of place and time, which almost always go at the end ("…in two hours", "…on the port side"). If the first word is "The", the subject follows it. Try it on this one — first word The, last word hours., chunks pilot · will · in two · arrive. Subject: pilot. Verb: will arrive. Time group last: in two. "The pilot will arrive in two hours." Build the sentence in that order and the chunks fall into place. Our word-order unit uses the same fixed first and last word as the test.
05Vocabulary (15 questions): the word used on board
The Vocabulary section asks for the word a ship uses, not the first meaning in a dictionary. Draught is not wind, it is how deep the ship sits in the water. A galley is a kitchen. The bosun is the senior deck rating. A heaving line is the light line you throw ashore before the mooring rope; the fairlead is the fitting it passes through; a bulkhead is a wall. Someone who learned English in an office knows none of these.
Three groups pay for themselves. Parts of the ship and their gear: bow, stern, hold, hatch cover, windlass, bitts, gangway, accommodation ladder. Documents: crew list, bill of lading, cargo manifest, port clearance, permit to work, log book. Safety: muster station, EPIRB, lifejacket, immersion suit, fire damper, watertight door, general alarm. The test likes the safety words because every rank must know them.
Method: learn by zone and by operation, never by alphabet. Walk through the ship in your head — forecastle, main deck, bridge, engine room, galley — and name what you see in each place. Then walk through an operation — mooring, bunkering, a fire drill, a pilot boarding — and name each step. Words learned in a place and a sequence come back under time pressure; words from an A-to-Z list do not. Our Vocabulary unit (513 items) is built that way, and every wrong answer explains the term.
06Time and numbers (5 questions): small section, expensive mistakes
Only five points, but they are the easiest five to lose in ten seconds, and some are typed, not chosen. What is spoken and how it is written:
You hear
You write
"oh six thirty"
06:30 — a 24-hour clock, with the leading zero. "Six thirty in the evening" is 18:30.
"eighteen hundred"
18:00 — hundreds are whole hours.
"one decimal five metres"
1.5 m — decimal (or point) is the decimal separator; never a comma.
"channel one six"
VHF channel 16 — digits are read one by one.
"draught forward seven point two"
7.2 m — the draught at the bow.
"latitude four one degrees two five minutes north"
41° 25′ N — degrees, then minutes.
In the dictation items, type digits only — 0630, not "six thirty" — and keep the zero at the front of a morning time. Decide before the recording ends whether you heard a 12-hour or a 24-hour time: "half past six in the evening" and "eighteen thirty" are the same clock. And watch the two digits that swap under pressure: "twenty-seven" heard as 72, "fifteen" typed as 50. Our Time & Numbers unit has 100 recorded items, and the dictations among them are graded exactly like this.
07Reading (1 task, several points)
The Reading section is one screen, but it is not one point. The task carries a point for every gap or heading, so a careless reading task can cost you as much as four Grammar questions. It comes in three forms:
A short text with drop-downs
A notice or a short report with four gaps, each with four options. Tactic: read the whole text once before touching a gap; then read the sentence around each gap, not only the gap. The option that fits the grammar but not the meaning is the usual trap.
Words into sentences, one spare
Three sentences, one bank of words, one word too many. Often scored all or nothing. Tactic: place the two you are sure of first; the third is then a choice between two words, and the spare word is usually the one that fits the topic but not the sentence.
Headings for paragraphs
Three short paragraphs and four headings. Tactic: read each paragraph's first sentence — that is where the topic sits — and match the heading that covers the whole paragraph, not one detail in it. The spare heading usually names a detail.
Because it is worth several points on one screen, do not leave the Reading task for the last minute. If it comes late in your test, give it the time it deserves and take the time from an item you were guessing anyway.
08Time management on the day
Sixty minutes for 85 questions sounds comfortable until you count the audio. The recordings cannot be speeded up, and two plays of a 20-second clip plus the time to choose is about a minute per listening item. Thirty-four audio items can take 25 to 30 minutes — half the recommended time is fixed before you read a single grammar sentence. The 51 text questions then share the other half: about 30 seconds each.
Never get stuck. If a grammar item does not resolve in 30 seconds, pick the best option and move on. You can return to any question and change your answer — Marlins says so on its About the tests page — so a doubtful pick costs nothing yet.
Remember the numbers of the items to revisit, and come back only when the whole test is answered.
Do not skip plays to save time. A second play that fixes one Listening answer is worth more than 30 seconds saved on a Grammar item you already know.
Reach the Reading task with time in hand. Several points, one screen.
Sixty minutes is a recommendation, not a wall — Marlins publishes no hard limit. But train for sixty: a candidate who needs ninety was usually translating.
09A two-week plan and a six-week plan
Both plans use the same tools: the free practice tests 1 to 6 (ten questions each, no sign-up), the practice units by section, and the timed 85-question simulation with the test's own weighting. If you have not booked yet, read how the test is booked and how long the result is valid first — the date decides which plan you follow.
Two weeks: you already read English well
Day
What to do (45–60 min)
Day 1
Free practice tests 1 and 2 for the format, then one Listening Comprehension unit: options first, two plays, transcript after.
Day 2
Grammar: present perfect vs past simple, past continuous. Write down every rule you got wrong.
Day 3
The Listening & Numbers drill (30 questions), then Time & Numbers with the dictations.
Day 4
Vocabulary: walk the ship by zone, then the safety words.
Day 5
Grammar: modals, prepositions, question forms. Real Format · Word Order: ten sentences, subject and verb first.
Day 6
Free practice tests 3 and 4, one Listening Comprehension unit, fifteen minutes of British audio without subtitles.
Day 7
The full 85-question timed simulation. The section with the lowest percentage is your week two.
Days 8–10
Each day: one unit of your weakest section, one Listening Comprehension unit, ten dictations. Read the explanation of every wrong answer.
Day 11
Reading Comprehension and the three Real Format · Reading units: drop-downs, word bank with a spare word, headings.
Day 12
Free practice tests 5 and 6, then the wrong-answers review.
Day 13
Second timed simulation. Compare it section by section with day 7.
Day 14
Light day: one Listening Comprehension unit, the -TEEN / -TY pairs, and sleep. No new simulation the night before.
Six weeks: your listening needs work
Week
Focus
Week 1
Format and diagnosis. Free practice tests 1–6 over the week, one timed simulation on day 6 or 7. Fifteen minutes of English audio every day, from today.
Week 2
Listening only. One Listening Comprehension unit a day with the two-plays method, every transcript read after answering. After the first play, say the situation to yourself in English — not in your language.
Week 3
Grammar. Grammar by theme — tenses, then modals and prepositions, then question forms — and Real Format · Word Order every other day, one Listening Comprehension unit on the others.
Week 4
Vocabulary and numbers. Vocabulary by zone and by operation; Time & Numbers with the dictations until the leading zero is a reflex. Keep the daily audio.
Week 5
Reading and mixed practice. Reading Comprehension and the three Real Format · Reading units, then units of the section that scored lowest in week 1. Second simulation at the end of the week.
Week 6
Test week. A short session a day: the Listening & Numbers drill, the wrong-answers review, ten dictations. Third simulation three days before the test at the latest; nothing new after it.
Fifteen minutes of English audio every single day beats a three-hour session on Sunday. Podcasts about shipping, a British news bulletin, a video of a bridge handover: anything spoken, without subtitles the second time.
10The mistakes that cost the most marks
Pressing play before reading the options. You spend the first play finding out what the question is about instead of listening for the answer.
Choosing what a sailor would do instead of what the speaker said. If you cannot place the words in the recording, the option is a distractor.
Trusting the option that copies the audio word for word. The right answer usually rewords it.
Hearing the last consonant instead of the stress in fifteen / fifty and thirteen / thirty.
Adding to after must or should, and picking past simple where since or for asks for present perfect.
Marking "the crew are" as wrong. On a British test it is normal English.
Typing a time in words, or dropping the leading zero. Digits only: 0630.
Reading only the gap, not the sentence around it, in the Reading task — and treating that task as one point when it is worth several.
Getting stuck on one grammar item for two minutes. Pick, move on, come back.
Preparing with text only. Thirty-four of the 85 questions are audio. Grammar books do not train an ear.
The full bank has 2,464 questions and 510 recordings, every one with an explanation after you answer. How the practice is organised.
11Questions candidates ask before the test
Is the Marlins test hard?
It depends on your listening more than on your grammar. Candidates who read English well but rarely hear it find it hard: 34 of the 85 questions are audio, the voices are natural and each recording plays only twice. Candidates who work in English every day usually find the grammar and vocabulary manageable and lose their marks in the different-sounds items and the typed numbers. There is no pass mark; the score your employer asks for is what makes it hard or easy for you.
How long should I prepare for the Marlins test?
If your English is already B1–B2 and you only need to learn the format and the traps, two weeks of daily practice is enough. If you understand written English but struggle with spoken English, plan six to eight weeks and listen to English every day. If you still translate in your head, the test format is not your problem yet — build the language first, then prepare for the test.
Can I go back and change an answer during the Marlins test?
Yes. Marlins' About the tests page says you "may return to any question at any point to change your answer". So a doubtful pick costs nothing: choose the best option, note the question number, and come back once everything is answered.
Are the recordings British or American?
Marlins is based in the United Kingdom, and our practice recordings use British voices for that reason; expect clear, natural speech rather than slow classroom English. We cannot promise which voices you will hear on your test day, so train your ear on clear English of more than one accent — but make British your main one: the -TEEN / -TY contrast, the silent r in port and berth and the long ah in can't are British features that decide the different-sounds items.
Do I need maritime knowledge to pass?
No knowledge of navigation or engineering is tested. The context is a ship — a call between bridge and engine room, a notice about a drill — but every question is about the English: the tense, the word, the number you heard. What you do need is the vocabulary of that context, which anyone who has sailed already has in their own language and only needs to learn in English.
Is there a speaking or writing part?
Not in the written test. You never write a sentence and never speak; the only typing is a number in the time-and-numbers dictations. Speaking is assessed separately by the Marlins Test of Spoken English (TOSE), a short interview with an assessor, which some employers ask for in addition to the written test.
What if my listening is weak?
Then listening is your whole preparation, because it is where the points are. Every day: one listening unit with two plays per recording, then the transcript — read it while you play the clip a third time and mark every word you did not catch. Add fifteen minutes of any British audio without subtitles, and ten minutes of the different-sounds pairs with audio, never from a list. Four weeks of this moves a listening score further than four weeks of grammar moves a grammar score.
