Comparative coh-metrix analysis of reading comprehension texts: Unified (Russian) state exam in English vs cambridge first certificate in English

Abstract

The article summarizes the results of the comparative study of Reading comprehension texts used in B2 level tests: Unified (Russia) State Exam in English (EGE) and Cambridge First Certificate in English (FCE). The research conducted was mainly focused on six parameters measured with the Coh-Metrix, a computational tool producing indices of the linguistic and discourse representations of a text: narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, referential cohesion, deep cohesion, Flesh Reading Ease. The research shows that the complexity of EGE texts caused by lower than in FCE texts cohesion is balanced with a simpler than in FCE texts syntax and higher narrativity thus resulting in about the same text complexity of the two sets of texts studied. EGE and FCE texts demonstrate correspondence to grade six and very similar Means of Flesh Reading Ease (FCE Mean is 71.06; EGE Mean is 78.25) which fit the band FAIRLY EASY.