What is the complexity checker?
The complexity checker utilises the English Grammar Profile (EGP) resource, which is a database of over 1,200 empirically-derived statements about the English Grammar learners can use at various levels. This application runs thousands of lines of code in seconds to compare the input text to those grammar points and that of a great deal of the English Vocabulary Profile (EVP).
Please remember that grammar and vocabulary complexity depend on choosing what is appropriate for a context. The “complexity checker” cannot do this for you. You cannot just slap together a bundle of C2 items and claim you have mastered a language.
It is a tool to help highlight Form after Use and Meaning within discourse has been considered manually. It may help less experienced teachers, for example, quickly locate items to highlight on student’s work more accurately and more efficiently than depending only on intuition.
The checker does not highlight:
- everything possible (it marks the highest complexity point it can find in each sentence and then marks some other points within it not requiring those same words)
- much beyond sentence level grammar
- accuracy / errors
Its priority is ordered from highest to lowest as such:
- Grammar
- Phrases
- Academic Vocabulary
- Words at the lowest sense (words have multiple meanings!)