NGSLT and NAWLT — New General Service List Project

NGSLT and NAWLT Tests

NEW GENERAL SERVICE LIST TEST (NGSLT)

The NGSLT is a diagnostic test of written receptive knowledge of the New General Service List (NGSL) (Browne, Culligan & Phillips, 2014) that was developed by Phil Bennett and Tim Stoeckel . The New General Service Lists Test (NGSLT) is comprised of 100 items, 20 for each of five approximately 560-word bands of the NGSL. Both the NAWLT and the NGSLT have been designed to the same specifications as the Vocabulary Size Test (VST) (Nation & Beglar, 2007). Each item provides the target word followed by a short sentence containing this word in a natural yet non-defining context. The test shows very high reliability (over .90), and was designed to help place students in approximately the right frequency band for study of NAWL words via our Quizlet.com word stacks or our free NAWL iPhone app (links to both can be found in the NGSL Tools pulldown menu). The test, answer sheet and explanation can be downloaded directly from this page via the links below.

NEW ACADEMIC WORD LIST TEST (NAWLT)

The NAWLT is a diagnostic test of written receptive knowledge of the New Academic Word List (NAWL) (Browne, Culligan & Phillips, 2014). The NAWL is comprised of 963 words1 that appear frequently in academic discourse and that are not part of the New General Service List (Browne, Culligan & Phillips, 2014). The NAWLT is comprised of 40 items, 20 from each of two frequency-determined bands of the NAWL. This sampling rate is approximately equal to that of the New General Service List Test (NGSLT) by the same authors. Sampling from bands of around 500 words is useful for two reasons. First, it allows for more precise feedback than sampling from 1000-word bands, which has been the norm in recent years. Second, it was felt that approximately 500 words is a reasonable learning goal for a semester of study, especially considering that some of those words will already be known to learners. Both the NAWLT and the NGSLT have been designed to the same specifications as the Vocabulary Size Test (VST) (Nation & Beglar, 2007). Each item provides the target word followed by a short sentence containing this word in a natural yet non-defining context. The test was designed to help place students in approximately the right frequency band for study of NAWL words via our Quizlet.com word stacks or our free NAWL iPhone app (links to both can be found in the NGSL Tools pulldown menu). The test, answer sheet and explanation can be downloaded directly from this page via the links below.

Thanks so much to Phil and Tim - very useful!