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To add to our discussion of reading tests, especially Gary's and Lonna's comments that reading tests measure some kind of reasoning rather than actual reading of the passages and that you can answer the questions without reading the passage first: About 10 years ago some researchers proved that you can often answer the questions without reading the passages *at all.* They gave the GRE questions to a group of students without the passages, and they got an average of 50% correct, significantly higher than the guessing level of 25% (one out of 4 multiple choice answers). They raised some questions about what the test really measures, since evidently the students could "comprehend" much of the passages without ever having seen them. Sorry I don't remember the reference, but it was in one of the journals on testing and measurement. Of course it doesn't seem to have changed anyone's practice. To add to the mess: Constance Weaver's _Reading Process and Practice_ cites references showing that students can often use knowledge of grammatical structure and syntax to choose correct answers to comprehension questions without understanding what they read. They demonstrated this by giving students passages with nonsense verbs and nouns embedded among English articles and pronouns to simulate real sentences. Annette Gourgey [log in to unmask]