This article describes TextEvaluator, a comprehensive text-analysis system designed to help teachers, textbook publishers, test developers, and literacy researchers select reading materials that are consistent with the text complexity goals outlined in the Common Core State Standards. Three particular aspects of the TextEvaluator measurement…

The Common Core Standards call for students to be exposed to a much greater level of text complexity than has been the norm in schools for the past 40 years. Textbook publishers, teachers, and assessment developers are being asked to refocus materials and methods to ensure that students are challenged to read texts at steadily increasing…

This paper explores alternative approaches for facilitating efficient, evidence-centered item development for a new type of verbal reasoning item developed for use on the GRE® General Test. Results obtained in two separate studies are reported. The first study documented the development and validation of a fully automated approach for locating the…

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between a set of item characteristics and the difficulty of TOEFL[R] dialogue items. Identifying characteristics that are related to item difficulty has the potential to improve the efficiency of the item-writing process The study employed 365 TOEFL dialogue items, which were coded on 49…

This study examines the predictability of Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) reading item difficulty (equated delta) for the three major reading item types: main idea, inference, and explicit statement items. Each item type is analyzed separately, using 110 GRE reading passages and their associated 244 reading items; selective analyses of 285…

Prediction of the difficulty (equated delta) of a large sample (n=213) of reading comprehension items from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was studied using main idea, inference, and supporting statement items. A related purpose was to examine whether text and text-related variables play a significant role in predicting item…

The first of two studies reported examined the factors that predict differences in item responses for black and white matched examinees to analogies on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). Data were taken from 13 forms of the GRE Verbal Test, with a median sample size of 21,000 whites and a median sample size of 1,400 blacks for the purpose of…

The primary goal of this project was to examine the predictability of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) reading item difficulty (equated delta) for main idea items, and the predictability of main idea, inference, and explicit statement item types. A secondary purpose was to contrast the responses of high verbal and low verbal ability examinees.…

The importance of item difficulty (equated delta) was explored as a predictor of differential item functioning of Black versus White examinees for 4 verbal item types using 13 Graduate Record Examination forms and 11 Scholastic Aptitude Test forms. Several significant racial differences were found. (TJH)

Analogy items from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) were evaluated for differential performance by black and white examinees. Black and white examinees were first matched for overall SAT-V scores prior to conducting item analyses. A content and psycholinguistic analysis of 220 disclosed SAT analogy items from 11 test forms was performed.…