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A corpus-based analysis of the syntactic complexity levels of reading passages in the College Entrance English Examination and English II

This study examined the syntactic complexity of reading passages in the College Entrance English Examination and English II, high school textbooks which inform the target difficulty level of the examination. A total of 68 passages from the three most recently administered papers of the examination and 29 passages from four randomly selected textbooks were analyzed using L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer, a software program which provides 14 indices of syntactic complexity. Kruskal-Wallis H tests indicated that in terms of all 14 indices the examination and the textbooks maintained the constant levels of syntactic complexity across years and publishers, respectively. In addition, Kruskal-Wallis H tests and Mann-Whitney U tests showed that in 10 out 14 indices of syntactic complexity reading passages from the examination were more complex syntactically than those from the textbooks. Implications of the findings are discussed, and directions for future research are also suggested.