Free QRS Calculator

Paste an English passage to calculate its QuestionWell Readability Score (QRS), with sentence length and vocabulary difficulty insights.

Want to understand what these scores mean for learners?Learn about readability metrics
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Add terms your readers already know, separated by commas or new lines. Words in these terms are excluded from vocabulary difficulty but still count toward sentence length.

Paste an English passage and click Calculate to see its estimated U.S. grade level and the factors behind the score.

What does my QRS score mean?

QRS estimates a U.S. grade level from 0 to 18. A score of 6 suggests roughly sixth-grade reading difficulty. Lower scores indicate easier text; higher scores indicate more challenging text.

Use this estimate alongside your knowledge of your readers. Prior knowledge, text structure, and the support you provide also affect how accessible a passage is.

How QRS is calculated

QRS gives equal weight to sentence length and vocabulary difficulty. Vocabulary difficulty uses the 90th percentile of estimated word grade levels, so more challenging words influence the result.

QRS = 0.5 Ă— sentence length grade + 0.5 Ă— vocabulary difficulty grade

This calculator is designed for English prose. Paste up to 20,000 characters and optionally add vocabulary your readers already know.