Part II: The Rationale Behind OTTER Difficulty Levels

Warning: The OTTER difficulty levels do not match any system of levels published on the internet by the British government regarding the British National Curriculum. 

Instead, the OTTER difficulty levels have been designed to underpin an adaptive learning system that aims to break down every English subtopic into six levels of knowledge that span the subject knowledge covered by British independent schools in Years 3 – 8.

OTTER Level 4 is designed to function as the baseline level of proficiency required in most 11+ examinations.

OTTER Levels 5 and 6 are designed as the advanced proficiency levels required in the 11+ examinations administered by the most selective independent schools, such as Harrow and Wycombe Abbey.

Furthermore, please note:  Some subtopics cover more subject knowledge than others and some subtopics are taught from Year 3 while others are not introduced until Year 5 or later. Therefore, the difficulty levels assigned to any one subject are not always uniform across subtopics. For example, ‘coordinating conjunctions’ are introduced at Level 6 in the Adjectives subtopic but at Level 5 in the Semicolons and Colons subtopic.