This study is based on two English vocabulary tests: theProductive Levels Test ( PLT ) and the Academic VocabularyTest ( AVT). 143 students from Hiroshima University, Japan,and 146 students from Tianjin University, China, both in theirsophomore year, were tested. The results in the PLT reveal thatthe productive vocabulary knowledge of the Japanese and Chineseuniversity students at the 2,000 word-level is not sufficient todeal with tasks required on the English courses of universitylevel. The results in AVT reveal that the academic vocabularyknowledge of the students is largely at the recognition stage,indicating that the students are defective at using and producingthe academic words they have learned. In A VT the performancesof the Japanese and Chinese students in some of the words arefound to have significant differences. The factors influencing thedifferences between the two groups of students are discussed.