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International Journal of Educational Curriculum Management and Research, 2023, 4(3); doi: 10.38007/IJECMR.2023.040301.

A Comparative Study of Reading Text Difficulty of CET-6 and IELTS Based on Coh-Metrix

Author(s)

Yian Zhang and Guangping Sun

Corresponding Author:
Guangping Sun
Affiliation(s)

Ningbo Tech University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China

Abstract

This study aims to compare the text complexity of reading texts from CET-6 and IELTS using Coh-Metrix, SPSS, and Range. The study found that IELTS reading texts are generally more complicated than those of CET-6 in terms of readability, and there are inherent differences between the two sets of texts. Compared with IELTS reading texts, those of CET-6 exhibit higher narrativity, and higher connectivity, while lower word concreteness, and lower referential cohesion. This reflects the nature of the complexity of a text, namely, referential cohesion can help readers better understand the articles with difficult topics; Moreover, there is no positive relationship between word concreteness and lexical resources. 

Keywords

IELTS, CET-6, Text Complexity, Reading Comprehension

Cite This Paper

Yian Zhang and Guangping Sun. A Comparative Study of Reading Text Difficulty of CET-6 and IELTS Based on Coh-Metrix. International Journal of Educational Curriculum Management and Research (2023), Vol. 4, Issue 3: 1-8. https://doi.org/10.38007/IJECMR.2023.040301.

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