The goal of such a pilot is to see if the test instructions, test items, procedure, rating procedure etc. work as planned. For example, when raters on a productive test have a huge difference in how they judge the signed language competences of a L2 learner, the rating scale/procedure needs to be revised. Or when students who already graduate from a four years BA programme perform worse on the same receptive test than first year students, one needs to investigate the reason and revise the test. After revising a test, test developers can start with a main study.