Abstract:

The present study describes the compilation of reliable and pedagogically viable word lists from a corpus of 19 English proficiency tests officially administerd by OSYM over a period of 10 years. The lists were intended for current and prospective academics in Turkish universities. The corpus consisted of previous ÜDS tests for social sciences and the word lists were generated using the Range Program (Heatley& Nation, 1994). The analysis revealed 4,452 different words which were later divided into 43 smaller-size lists. The lists contained an average of 99 words (between 185 and 41 words). They were graded in usefulness according to three criteria: ÜDS range, BNC frequency and ÜDS frequency. Function words and cognates were put into separate lists. Although ÜDS has been abolished and replaced by YDS in 2013, the words lists based on ÜDS are still relevant for YDS as the two tests are very similar in content measuring similar language skills. On the other hand, past YDS tests are not released in full to the public, and the published sections are not sufficient for making reliable word lists. ÜDS lists were, therefore, suggested as usable for study towards YDS. It was cautioned, however, that the lists were mere word lists and not study lists.

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