1 of 6 2/13/2013 9:47 AM SCHOOL OF LINGUISTICS AND APPLIED LANGUAGE STUDIES Learning Vocabulary in Another Language: A Test of Teachers' Knowledge 1 How many word families does an average adult native speaker of English know? A 150,000 B 100,000 C 50,000 D 20,000 2 If learners know the most frequent 2000 words of English, what percentage of running words in an academic text will be known to them? A 60% B 80% C 90% D 98% 3 What is the most important factor in formal measures of readability? A background knowledge B vocabulary knowledge C reading skill in L1 D grammatical knowledge 4 The most effective way of beginning to learn the meaning of a word is by A the use of a picture B translation into the first language C a dictionary definition D seeing a word in context 5 How many words does an average learner of English as a foreign language know after five or six years of four 50 minute English classes per week? A 1,000 B 3,000 C 5,000 D 10,000 6 Initially opposites like hot and cold should be learned A at the same time B in quick succession C as part of a bigger lexical set D at widely separated times
2 of 6 2/13/2013 9:47 AM 7 Complex words like inventiveness and uncontrollably are usually stored in the brain as A stems and affixes that are combined when needed B both as whole units and word parts C complete analyzed words D complete unanalyzed words 8 Learners most often have problems in guessing the meaning of a word in helpful contexts because they A give too much attention to the form of the word B do not use their background knowledge of the topic C do not draw on clues from neighboring sentences or paragraphs D do not give attention to the immediate context of the word 9 In order to have a good chance of guessing the meaning of an unknown word from context clues, what percentage of the running words in the text does the learner need to know? A 78% B 80% C 90% D 98% 10 When learners know the most common 2000 words of English, the words that they have most difficulty with in academic texts in their specialist area are A general purpose academic words like assume, concept, diverse B function words like because, although, hence C proper nouns like Darwin, Menlo Park, Edgebaston D technical words like anode, impedance, galvonometer 11 The "lexical bar" is A the Graeco-Latin words of English B the high frequency words of English C the function words of English D the discourse markers of English 12 Teachers should deal with low frequency words by A breaking them into prefixes, stems and suffixes B letting learners guess them from context C teaching the learners strategies to deal with them D providing varied and repeated opportunities to give attention to those words 13 Which of these most helps vocabulary learning? A meeting or using the word in a new way B having its meaning explained C meeting the word in context
3 of 6 2/13/2013 9:47 AM D searching for the word in a dictionary 14 Definitions of unknown words are most effective if A they are short B they contain plenty of useful detail C they are written as complete sentences D they are accompanied by grammatical information 15 Most learning of vocabulary used in oral communication tasks involves words A whose meanings are negotiated in the task B whose meanings are not negotiated in the task C which are in the written input to the task D which are not in the written input to the task 16 A "book flood" involves A doing a lot of intensive reading in class B setting a lot of intensive reading outside class C replacing a large part of the class work with extensive reading D encouraging extensive reading outside class time 17 The "Lexical Frequency Profile" is a way of A measuring productive vocabulary use B deciding what will be classified as high frequency words C comparing the frequency of selected words D diagrammatically representing vocabulary growth 18 Quickly providing meanings for unknown words while listening or reading A has little effect on comprehension of the text B upsets comprehension of the text C greatly increases the amount of vocabulary learned D results in little vocabulary learning 19 About what percentage of the low frequency words of English comes from French, Latin or Greek? A 20% B 40% C 60% D 80% 20 How many closely related members does a typical English word family have? A 3 B 5 C 7 D 9 21 During writing activities, learners use dictionaries most often to
4 of 6 2/13/2013 9:47 AM A check spelling B look up the meaning of a word C see if a word exists D find out about the grammar of the word 22 "Retrieval" involves A receptive learning B productive learning C recalling an item D recognizing that two given items go together 23 The sentence "To be or not to be, that is the question" consists of ten A tokens B types C lemmas D word families 24 A "lemma" is a base word and A all its derived forms B all its inflected forms C all its related forms D all its inflected forms which are the same part of peech 25 An "Academic vocabulary" is made up of words that A are only used in academic texts B are only used in a specialised field C are found in a wide range of academic texts D are found in a wide range of academic and non-academic texts 26 How many chunks of information can be held in short-term memory at any one time? A one B about three C about seven D about ten 27 The General Service List of English Words is a list of A 30,000 words and their frequencies B the commonest collocations C 2,000 high frequency words D words that can be used to define other words 28 To test learners' productive knowledge of vocabulary we must get learners to A produce words in spoken or written sentences
5 of 6 2/13/2013 9:47 AM B produce spoken or written forms from a meaning cue C produce or recognize spoken or written word forms from a meaning cue D produce a first language translation of words 29 Vocabulary tests using different test formats tend to correlate with each other with a correlation around A 0.3 B 0.5 C 0.7 D 0.9 30 Coxhead's Academic Word List contains A 492 word families B 570 word families C 836 word families D 1,000 word families Answers 1D 2B 3B 4B 5B 6D 7A 8A 9D 10A 11A 12C 13A 14A 15B 16C 17A 18C 19C 20C 21A 22C 23A 24D 25C 26C 27C 28B 29C 30B
6 of 6 2/13/2013 9:47 AM Page Updated: 28/11/2011 2010 Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand