The KET list was originally developed by Cambridge ESOL in consultation with external consultants to guide item writers who produce materials for the KET examination. It includes vocabulary from the Council of Europe’s Waystage (1990) specification and other vocabulary which has been shown by corpus evidence to be high-frequency.
The list covers vocabulary appropriate to this level of English and includes receptive vocabulary
(words that the candidate is expected to understand but which is not the focus of a question), and productive vocabulary (words that the candidate needs to know in order to answer a question).
The list does not provide an exhaustive list of all words which appear on the KET question papers and candidates should not confine their study of vocabulary to the list alone.