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Readability of Syntactic Constructions for Transparency and Reliability of Input Texts for Unified State Exams in English

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Abstract

Reliability of tests can vary depending on various linguistic features. One of them is readability, which has received little academic and research interest in Russian linguistics. Following Coh-Metrix, syntax characteristics are among its elements. We compiled a corpus of texts for reading of Unified State Exam, an official tool for assessing graduates for entering Universities. The test is reliable and valid for its purposes, but it is important to study the quality of the input texts by the reference to the stated CEFR A2+, B1 and B2 levels. Conducting the research on syntactic simplicity, the paper studies the distinctive features showing the discrimination factors defining their CEFR level in order to increase the transparency of tools for choosing the texts for better task taking procedures.

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Correspondence to Elena Varlamova .

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Varlamova, E., Safonkina, O. (2020). Readability of Syntactic Constructions for Transparency and Reliability of Input Texts for Unified State Exams in English. In: Hidri, S. (eds) Changing Language Assessment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42269-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42269-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-42268-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-42269-1

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