Twenty English words across four kinds of word knowledge
Twenty items across four word relations: a definition, the word a sentence needs, a choice between near synonyms, a word read from its parts. Every answer explained.
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20 items · 8 min
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Every answer shown afterwards
What this assessment measures
This route asks twenty multiple-choice questions about English words and reports accuracy for four separate relations: what a word means on its own, which word a sentence requires, which of several close words is closest in meaning, and what a word's prefix, suffix or root tells you. Every item is shown afterwards with the correct answer and a sentence saying why the near misses miss. It is not an estimate of how many words you know.
What this test looks at
definition · 5 items
word in context · 5 items
near synonym · 5 items
word formation · 5 items
Time
8 minutes
Items
20
Result
attainable-range pattern summary
Source
Original MyTestAtlas task generator
Twenty isolated words cannot measure reading level, fluency, education or intelligence, and this route reports no vocabulary size, no reading age, no CEFR level and no percentile. Princeton WordNet is a reference for meanings only; every prompt, option and explanation here is written for this site.
This route calculates its result in this browser tab; answers and result text are not sent as analytics properties or written to browser storage.
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Why this route is different
Four relations reported separately is the useful part: knowing a definition cold and still picking the wrong word for a sentence is a different gap from not reading a Latin root, and a single total hides both. The distractors are written to be real traps for a reader who half-knows the word—candour against courtesy, meticulous against methodical, portable against portal—so a miss is informative rather than random.
A small next step
Take one missed word, write a sentence of your own using it, and check that use against a dictionary entry before you trust it in writing.
Questions people ask
Does this tell me how many words I know?
No. Twenty words cannot estimate a vocabulary size, and this route prints no word count, no reading age and no CEFR level. It reports accuracy for four kinds of word knowledge, which is a smaller and different thing.
What are the four kinds?
What a word means on its own, which word a sentence requires, which of several close words is closest in meaning, and what a word's prefix, suffix or root tells you. Five items each. Knowing a definition cold and still picking the wrong word for a sentence is a different gap from not reading a Latin root, and a single total hides both.
Why is there no percentile?
There is no norm sample behind these twenty words, and no result this site calculates is ever attached to a population percentile. The score is measured against this test's own attainable range, so it compares you with these items rather than with other readers.
Is this a test of intelligence or of education?
Neither. Vocabulary tracks reading history, schooling and whether English is your first language more than anything else, so a low result here is usually about exposure. It is not an IQ and carries no claim about how you think.