The present investigation was undertaken to identify the type of strategies learning disabled (LD) students employ on standardized, group-administered achievement test items. Of particular interest was level of strategy effectiveness and possible differences in strategy use between LD and nondisabled students. Students attending resource rooms and regular third-grade classes were administered items from reading achievement tests and interviewed concerning the strategies they had employed in answering the questions and their level of confidence in each answer. Results indicated that (a) LD students were less likely to report use of appropriate strategies on inferential questions, (b) LD students were less likely to attend carefully to specific format demands, and (c) LD students reported inappropriately high levels of confidence.

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38 college undergraduates were administered reading-comprehension items from a major standardized achievement test with corresponding passages deleted. Analysis indicated that, after 20 years of similar research findings, highly passage-independent items still occur on major tests.

This final report describes the activities, results, and conclusions of a 3-year project whose major purpose was to improve test-taking skills of learning-disabled and behaviorally disordered students, with respect to standardized achievement tests.

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