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Guess the grade of this passage

Read the opening of each passage and pick the band you'd hand it to. After each pick you see the grade it was written for and what the readability formula says about the whole passage.

Question 1 of 8

A honey bee spends its days visiting flowers. It lands on a blossom and sips a sweet liquid called nectar. The bee stores the nectar in a special honey stomach, which is separate from the stomach it uses to digest food.

When the bee flies back to the hive, it passes the nectar to another bee. That bee chews it for a while and then spreads it into a six-sided wax cell. The nectar is still thin and watery at this point.

Which grade band was this passage written for?

How the numbers are worked out

  • Each passage is one of Peabody Teach's own, written for the grade it's filed under.
  • The Flesch–Kincaid grade uses only words per sentence and syllables per word (Kincaid and colleagues, 1975). Syllables are counted by rule, so a word can be off by one.
  • The number is for the whole passage; you see the opening. Under about 100 words the formula is unreliable.

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More quizzes for teachers

The best answer to every question, and why
  1. Which grade band was this passage written for? 3–5. Yes. “How Bees Make Honey” was written for grade 3, so 3–5. On the whole passage (162 words, 13 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 4.6, about 5th grade. The formula agrees.
  2. Which grade band was this passage written for? 6–8. Yes. “The Nile, a River in the Desert” was written for grade 6, so 6–8. On the whole passage (269 words, 16 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 7.9, about 8th grade. The formula agrees.
  3. Which grade band was this passage written for? K–2. Yes. “Ducks at the Pond” was written for grade 1, so K–2. On the whole passage (84 words, 12 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is -0.1, below 1st grade. The formula agrees. Under 100 words the formula swings a lot, so trust your ear more than the number.
  4. Which grade band was this passage written for? 6–8. Yes. “The Mural” was written for grade 7, so 6–8. On the whole passage (331 words, 23 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 6.4, about 6th grade. The formula agrees.
  5. Which grade band was this passage written for? 3–5. Yes. “Lightning and Thunder” was written for grade 4, so 3–5. On the whole passage (195 words, 17 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 3.9, about 4th grade. The formula agrees.
  6. Which grade band was this passage written for? K–2. Yes. “The Mail Carrier” was written for grade 2, so K–2. On the whole passage (129 words, 13 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 3.3, about 3rd grade. Here the formula and the writer disagree. The formula counts only sentence length and syllables; it can't see how familiar the topic is or how much a reader must already know.
  7. Which grade band was this passage written for? 6–8. Yes. “Gutenberg and the Printing Press” was written for grade 8, so 6–8. On the whole passage (304 words, 19 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 8.6, about 9th grade. The formula agrees.
  8. Which grade band was this passage written for? 3–5. Yes. “Hello, Mr. Watson” was written for grade 5, so 3–5. On the whole passage (224 words, 18 sentences) the Flesch–Kincaid grade is 5.5, about 5th grade. The formula agrees.

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