Establishing difficulty level consistency across texts in exams at four levels using lexical profiling

Abstract

This research looked at investigating the consistency of difficulty across the four levels of exams (B1, B2, C1, C2 as per the CEFR) which have been developed by the exams team at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). This was completed using two measures of difficulty: readability and word frequency i.e. the research undertook lexical profiling. Results were compared to similar results from Cambridge ESOL exams (Khalifa and Weir 2007) at the equivalent CEFR levels. In addition, this research project aimed to create a database to use as the basis for future benchmarking to improve future exam production. In this initial stage of the project, only the Reading sections of the exams were analysed. Practical implications for exam development conclude the article.