Resumen

CASART QUINTERO, Yris  y  CARTAYA FEBRES, Noela. Could Difficulty of English for Science and Technology (EST) Reading-Comprehension Test Items be Predicted by Analysing their Lexical Profile?. Núcleo [online]. 2013, vol.25, n.30, pp.11-40. ISSN 0798-9784.

Research in L1 and L2 reading-comprehension assigns a key role to the vocabulary profile of a text in readability formulas, favoring it over other variables (Chall, 1984; Day, 1994; Nuttall, 1996; Read, 1997; etc.). This study explores a possible statistical correlation between lexical profiles and difficulty indexes of the items in a set of achievement tests of a reading program in English for Science and Technology for Spanish-speakers. With this in mind, type-token ratio; percentage of high-frequency words, academic and scientific vocabulary; and the Greco-Latin index for each item were calculated. Our results show that lexical profiles per se do not determine the level of difficulty of an item. Learners’ lack of a minimal lexical threshold in L2 and their failure to recognize English-Spanish cognates may account for these results. Although lexical profile analysis does not allow for item difficulty prediction, it is still essential for guaranteeing the suitability of texts during generation and evaluation of reading comprehension questions.

Palabras clave : teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English for Science and Technology (EST); L2 reading comprehension; readability; vocabulary profile and lexical threshold.

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