Hu and Nation's (2000) study, which stipulated that second language (L2) readers need to be familiar with 98% of lexical items for adequate text comprehension, has become highly influential in L2 vocabulary research and pedagogy. However, the 98% critical threshold figure is based on findings from a research project in which a regression analysis…

Describes a study which investigated the intersentential sensitivity of the rational deletion cloze procedure. Eighty-four college-level students of German were divided into two sub-groups; one group completed a sequential cloze task, the other completed a scrambled cloze task. There were not significant differences in performance on the two…

Analysis of the keyed responses of items in three English-as-a-Second-Language reading comprehension tests focused on the form and source of information and on the frequency with which the information appeared in the text. Analysis of the results found that these facets were differentially related to the item score at different proficiency levels.…