This article documents the result of a study carried out to measure the extent to which quantitative text variables can predict the grades that human markers assign to written compositions. The results showed that six quantitative text variables can predict composition grades with an accuracy of 76 per cent. The study is methodologically interesting on two levels. Firstly, it shows a high degree of agreement between qualitative and quantitative forms of text analysis. This result calls into question the opposition that is often made between these two forms of analysis. Secondly, the study used qualitative and quantitative methods in a complementary fashion in order to address the research question. This complementarity is at odds with the conventional methodological purism that regards quantitative and qualitative methods as incompatible: Overall, the study illustrates the usefulness of mixed methods in research.