What is the Flesch Test?

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability score formula:

FKRS = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 15.59

where:  

FKRS = Flesch-Kincaid Readability Score

ASL = Average Sentence Length.  Number of words divided by number of sentences.


ASW = Number of syllables divided by the number of words.


FKRA = Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age formula:

FKRA = (0.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 10.59

where:

FKRA = Flesch-Kincaid Reading Age

ASL = Average Sentence Length.  Number or words divided by the number of sentences.


ASW = Number of syllables divided by the number of words.

The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula is used by the US Government Department of Defense as a standard test.  The test allowing to compute this score was created by Rudolf Flesch in the 1940's, and later enhanced by John P. Kincaid.

Sunday Times (London):
And now, the first grown-up Oscar speech
Features the Global Language Monitor

Click Here.

The Flesch Test Data Behind the Story

Selected Winners 2004 - 1992

Russell Crowe, Gladiator, 2000, Leading Actor, Grade Level:  9.
Dreamworks … a vital and andrenalized contributor to the art form     

Tom Hanks, Philadelphia 1993 Actor, Grade Level:  8.9We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all.

Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump 1994 Actor, Grade Level:  8.9And I am standing here because the woman I share my life with has taught me and demonstrates for me every day just what love is.

Robert Zemeckis, Forrest Gump 1994 Director, Grade Level:  7.4… you have embraced a film that at its heart offers a human, life affirming, hopeful story.  

Sam Mendes, American Beauty 1999 Directing, Grade Level:  7.3
I want to say thank you to Billy Wilder. And I want to say to him, if my career after this point amounts to one tenth of what yours has been, I will be a very happy man.  

Emma Thompson, Howard's End 1992 Actress, Grade Level:  7.0
And finally, I would like, if I may, to dedicate this Oscar to the heroism and the courage of women. And to hope that it inspires the creation of more true screen heroines to represent them.  

Nicolas Cage, Leaving Las Vegas 1992 Actor, Grade Level:  6.5
Three and a half million dollar budget, some 16mm film stock thrown in, and I'm holding one of these.  

Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven 1992 Director, Grade Level:  6.4
… a profession that you really enjoy. That's an opportunity I think a lot of people don't have.  

Holly Hunter, The Piano 1993 Actress, Grade Level:  6.3
When I was six years old I started pretending to play the piano on the window sills of my bedroom ….

Jessica Lange, Blue Sky 1994 Actress, Grade Level:  6.3
This is such a wonderful honor, especially for a little film that seemed to have no future.  

Peter Jackson, LOTR 2003 Director, Grade Level:  5.6
I just want to thank two very special people that when I was eight years old I made films at home on a Super-8 camera that my mum and dad had bought for me.  

Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman 1992 Actor, Grade Level:  5.2

I had this thought, and I thought if I ever got up here I would say it. I've been very lucky.  

Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking 1995 Actress, Grade Level:  5.1

May all of us find in our hearts and in our homes and in our world a way to nonviolently end violence and heal.  

Mel Gibson, Braveheart 1995 Directing, Grade Level:  5.1

And to those people who say it's a circus, then with your celebration of life you show me that the circus is a place of daring and risk-taking and working without a safety net and giving us your personal poetry.  

Charlize Theron, Monster 2003 Actress, Grade Level:  4.7
I know everybody in New Zealand has been thanked so I'm going to thank everybody in South Africa  

Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List 1993 Director, Grade Level:  4.5
And to the six million who can't be watching this among the one billion watching this telecast tonight.

Anthony Minghella, English Patient 1996 Directing, Grade Level:  4.4
My wife, who has taught me the meaning of the word "uxoriousness".  

Adrien Brody, The Pianist 2002 Actor, Grade Level:  3.9
There comes a time in life when everything seems to make sense and this is not one of those times.  

Halle Berry, Monster's Ball 2001 Actress, Grade Level:  3.4
The word 'thank' used 31 times.  

Nicole Kidman, The Hours 2002 Actress, Grade Level:  3.3
Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important.  

Jamie Foxx, Ray 2004 Actor, Grade Level:  2.4
And she still talks to me now; only now she talks to me in my dreams.