The tests are meant to measure how well a person can function in real-life situations in a foreign language according to well-defined linguistic tasks and assessment criteria.
Because of the subjective wording of the distractors (i.e., the "wrong" answers), the fact that many individuals take versions of the test numerous times and acquire a feel for its peculiarities while others lack that advantage, and the fact that it was not nearly challenging enough, the status of the DLPT IV as a proficiency test was controversial.
Because the net effect on military linguists was an average drop of about half a point of proficiency across all skills and all languages, many believe that the new version was intended to be a cost saving measure by reducing FLPP.
[citation needed] While the format of previous DLPTs was consistent across languages, there are two distinct formats of the DLPT5—multiple choice (in Russian, Chinese, MSA, and others) and constructed response (in some of the so-called "Less Commonly Taught Languages" like Hindi and Albanian).
DLPT5 was taken in conjunction with DLPT IV during the trial stage of that version, and has since usurped it as the standard test.