Word frequency has a long history of being considered the most important predictor of word difficulty and has served as a guideline for several aspects of second language vocabulary teaching, learning, and assessment. However, recent empirical research has challenged the supremacy of frequency as a predictor of word difficulty. Accordingly,…

Second-language (L2) testing researchers have explored the relationship between speakers' overall speaking ability, reflected by holistic scores, and the speakers' performance on speaking subcomponents, reflected by analytic scores (e.g., McNamara, 1990; Sato, 2011). These research studies have advanced applied linguists' understanding of how…