No, it isn’t.
It is a highly reliable test to determine one’s English proficiency. Don’t you think that there should be a very good reason for it to have become the most widely accepted test worldwide of one’s English language competency?
Your score in the IELTS test informs a person of the level that you occupy in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The band that you achieve in a single module, in addition to your overall test score, clearly indicates whether or not you are a modest/competent/good/very good/expert user of the English language.
A host of criteria have gone into creating this scale. And the IELTS scoring system is based on the highly-scientific CEFR. Regular scholarships and grants are provided by the IELTS Official body to conduct innovative research in various fields. Some could be
- “Investigating the cognitive and social aspects of IELTS speaking performances across proficiency levels. . .”
- “Investigating linkages between international students’ English language proficiency, social–contextual outcomes, and wellbeing. . .”
- “Investigating the development of ‘grammatical range and accuracy’ at different proficiency levels. . .”
- “Investigating IELTS Academic Writing Task 2: Relationships between cognitive writing processes, text quality, and working memory. . .”
Shall we leave it at this? 🙂
Sadly, a discussion on this topic is out of the scope of this answer here. But doubt not that you are in good hands. Cambridge UCLES is fully aware of what it is doing.