The 8 Levels of English Vocabulary
Where do you stand? And what does it take to move up?
Most vocabulary tests give you a score between 0 and 100. The problem is that 100 means nothing. 100 out of what? Compared to whom?
Lemmerly uses a different approach — one borrowed from competitive chess. Every word has an ELO rating. Every person has an ELO rating. Your rating reflects exactly which words you know and which ones you don't, calibrated continuously against a corpus of 80,000+ words.
Eight titles mark the journey. Here is what each one means — in plain terms, with real examples.
The starting point. Everyday English — words you use in conversation, basic reading, and simple writing.
Comfortable with standard written English. Newspapers, emails, everyday non-fiction.
Strong academic vocabulary. CAT and SAT level. Comfortable with formal writing and textbooks.
Above-average vocabulary. Comfortable with literary fiction, academic papers, and professional writing.
Advanced vocabulary. GRE and GMAT level. Words that appear in serious literary and scholarly writing.
Rare and literary vocabulary. Words found in 19th-century fiction, scholarly journals, and specialist literature.
Grandmaster level. Technical, archaic, and highly specialised vocabulary from law, medicine, philosophy, and literature.
The rarest tier. Vocabulary at the outer edges of the English language — words that appear in only the most specialised texts.
How to Move Up
The honest answer: read more, read harder. No vocabulary app can substitute for sustained exposure to high-quality writing. But an app can do something a book cannot — it can identify exactly which words you don't know, show them to you at the precise moment you're about to forget them, and track whether you're actually improving.
The ELO system means your rating converges on your true level within 5-10 sessions. After that, every session either confirms your level or pushes you higher. Words you know drift away; words you struggle with keep returning until they stick.
Moving from Lex Scholar (1100) to Lex Adept (1300) typically takes 20-30 focused sessions. Moving from Lex Expert (1500) to Lex Master (1700) is a different challenge entirely — the words are rarer, the differences more subtle, and consistent practice over months is the only path.
Most People Don't Know Their Level
The majority of university graduates in India land between Lex Scholar and Lex Expert — roughly 1100 to 1500 ELO. Most have never tested themselves precisely enough to know where exactly they fall, or which specific words are holding them back.
That is what Lemmerly is for.