Evaluator last updated March 13, 2025. At a glance Input type Informational text Supported grades 3-12
The Subject Matter Knowledge Evaluator assesses the subject-matter complexity of reading passages using SAP’s Qualitative Text Complexity rubric (SAP) ↗. It:
Evaluates how much prior knowledge a text relies on.
Lists key concepts in the text.
Evaluates whether students have likely encountered these concepts before.
This evaluator was refined through repeated review by literacy experts so that its complexity ratings closely match expert judgment using qualitative rubrics.
Model and prompt For instructions on running the evaluator, see Quickstart .
Model used gemini-3-flash-preview Temperature 0 Prompts View prompts ↗Notebook View notebook ↗
Other configurations will produce different results and may have lower
accuracy.
Requirement Supported Required Target grade level Enables grade context evaluation Yes Text type Informational text Yes
Output Field Description Complexity rating Complexity level Reasoning Synthesized explanation of the decision Identified topics List of topics in the text Curriculum check Classification of topics as general or specialized Assumptions and scaffolding Analysis of assumed prior knowledge vs. explained content Friction analysis Analysis of the gap between concrete description and abstract meaning
Interpreting results This evaluator returns one of the following ratings, along with reasoning for you to use to determine your best course of action.
Rating Meaning Slightly complex The text relies on everyday, practical knowledge and presents simple, concrete ideas. Moderately complex The text relies on common practical knowledge and some discipline-specific content, with a mix of simple and more abstract ideas. Very complex The text relies on moderate discipline-specific or theoretical knowledge and mixes recognizable ideas with challenging abstract concepts. Exceedingly complex The text relies on extensive discipline-specific or theoretical knowledge and presents a range of challenging abstract concepts.
Rubric Based on SAP ↗‘s Qualitative Text Complexity Rubric for Informational Text ↗.
Slightly complex Moderately complex Very complex Exceedingly complex Relies on everyday, practical knowledge; includes simple, concrete ideas. Relies on common practical knowledge and some discipline-specific content knowledge; includes a mix of simple and more complicated, abstract ideas. Relies on moderate levels of discipline-specific or theoretical knowledge; includes a mix of recognizable ideas and challenging abstract concepts. Relies on extensive levels of discipline-specific or theoretical knowledge; includes a range of challenging abstract concepts.
Accuracy and validation This evaluator is provided as Early access. \ Comprehensive accuracy measures
are not yet available. Validation testing is ongoing.
We assessed performance against an expert-annotated dataset of texts, rated by 3 experts, rather than traditional static benchmark metrics. For more information, see Accuracy .
Metric Result Complexity score accuracy 87% based on agreement with 3 experts assessing ~30 texts Expert agreement rate 100% Dataset source CLEAR Corpus ↗
Evaluator release history Date Changed March 13, 2026 First release.
