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.

Previous research has indicated that students in many cases can answer reading comprehension test questions correctly without having read the accompanying passage. The present research compared, in two experiments, the ability of learning disabled (LD) students and more typical age peers to answer such reading comprehension questions presented independently of reading passages. In Study 1, learning disabled students scored appreciably lower under conditions resembling standardized administration procedures. In Study 2, reading decoding ability was controlled for; however, the performance differential remained the same. Results suggested a relative deficiency on the part of LD students with respect to reasoning strategies and test-taking skills. In addition, the validity of some tests of "reading comprehension" was discussed.

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.