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First of, a big thanks to ncprasad for pointing us to this great tool to check the Flesch Reading ease. 

I just changed one paragraph I had written from telling to showing, and it improved the reading ease dramatically, from low 40s to high 50s. Just thought I should let you all know to try it out, in case you haven't already.

kidderek · Answer

link?

mbagal1 · Answer

Oh, I meant to try changing the telling to showing, not just the tool. But here's the link. https://www.online-utility.org/english/r ... mprove.jsp

lanter1 · Answer

This is really helpful...i did not see a breakdown on what is considered a great/good score. Does anyone know? 

I think the biggest advantage of using this is meeting your word limits. I had a 500 word essay that once completed had 650. Using this service, I have cut to 493, removed unneeded sentences, and made it more concise. Great tool.

ncp · Answer

lanter1, take a look at this thread. https://gmatclub.com/forum/103/51031 I am glad everyone is finding this tool very useful.

lanter1 · Answer

this link took me back to the forum page.

kundan77 · Answer

What would be an ideal 'Flesch Reading Ease' for a 500 word essay? How good is a score of 40?

shmegs · Answer

I like the Flesh Kindling system to an extent. The tool lowers readibility scores if you use complex words, which may be necessary when trying to minimize essay length. That being said, I think that a score between 40-50 mean that an essay is easy to read. I still think it is better to read an essay out loud and see if the ideas flow and your thoughts are clear. The FK tool is useful, but it is just that a tool...nothing beats getting an outsider's opinion and reading an essay out loud.

kundan77 · Answer

shmegs, I completely subscribe to your views. Achieving a balance between readability and effectiveness of an essay as short as 300/500 words is really difficult. When I try to use strongly expressive sentences the readability index falls below 30. As you said, the lucidity of expression is perhaps much more important !

anonymousegmat · Answer

All of my essays have a Flesch score of around 45...

but what is the deal with the Felsch Kincaid grade level? Most of mine are at grade 11. is there a grade range we should be shooting for?

ncp · Answer

Grade level indicates the minimum level of education needed to read and understand your text. 10th or 11th grade is definitely very good. I think 45/11 is a great combo.

anonymousegmat · Answer

thanks man. one of my essays was graded at a 9.5 grade level and a 47 Flesch. at first i was worried.. i thought it meant that it looks like a freshman in highschool wrote the essay. I guess I am i giving to much weight to this stuff?

anyway... thanks for the tip. i didn't even know this tool existed 2 days ago, now i am freaking addicted.

mbagal1 · Answer

You can say that again, I have started running all my business emails through the tool now

dahcrap · Answer

I ran a portion of my stanford Essay 1 on this tool and I got this result.

Number of characters (without spaces) : 1,073.00 
Number of words : 197.00 
Number of sentences : 9.00 
Average number of characters per word : 5.45 
Average number of syllables per word : 1.91 
Average number of words per sentence: 21.89 


Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading 
Gunning Fog index : 18.50 


Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text : 
Coleman Liau index : 14.91 
Flesh Kincaid Grade level : 15.53 
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 15.17 
SMOG : 16.29 


Flesch Reading Ease : 22.72

 Is this good ?

anonymousegmat · Answer

it is hard for a computer to grade an essay - if you look on wikipedia you can see what these indexes mean and how they compute the score. they are basically math equations.

having said that, your flesch reading ease is probably too low - meaning your essay might be hard to understand or read w/o losing interest (think GMAT RC passage or article in an academic journal)

you probably are using too much flowery prose or too many syllables / words to convey a point that can be more concisely stated... 

but again, it is just an algorithm and it can't understand your essay... your essay could kick @ss. take an honest look at it and be the judege

kryzak · Answer

I would try to keep it above 30-35 MINIMUM... below that, I notice I have 3-4 line long sentences that even I get lost reading them!

mbagal1 · Answer

I starting to worry about my content. My first complete essay (draft) is at ease level 74. Anyone else in the same boat? Maybe Im adding too much fluff and too little substance...sigh.

riverripper · Answer

My goal is a minimum of 40, hopefully closer to 45+. Most of mine actually are at 50+ now but even the lower scores I feel read well.

This tool is great for pointing out sentences that are long and/or wordy and could be improved on. Having a lower score doesn't mean that your essays will be weak but chances are it will be harder to understand. Big words may make you seem smart but you don't want to confuse anyone reading it. Thats why the scores are helpful since they give you a rough idea of how hard it is to comprehend.

As for having a score that is too high, I have no clue what your essay looks like so it could be great and very easy to read or it could be TOO easy to read because it is lacking. You are going to have to judge that or get honest opinions from your reviewers.

kryzak · Answer

I find what brings my score down are long sentences. When you need to fit a lot of things in a short essay, sometimes you go for the, "My leadership qualities are demonstrated by doing X, Y, and Z." and if XYZ are long titles/names of jobs, then that makes the sentence very long. I've tried to break a few of those long sentences into two or more sentences, but that increases the word count since you need to have some transitional phrases to link the new sentences together (otherwise it reads as "I did this. I did that". 

So, in the end, it's a catch-22 for me. So 35-40 is a good goal. 74 is a bit high though. Either you write REALLY well, or the sentence structures you use are too simple?

mbagal1 · Answer

Yes, I definitely think it's the latter. I think I'm writing it like a cheap popular novel rather than a business school essay. I need to change my style. I have sent this one off to one my friends, let me see what he comes back with. He'll probably tear it apart. 

Thanks both of you.

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