I read a ton as a kid, and I always struggled a bit on reading comprehension tests. To me it generally seemed like the "reading comprehension" questions would focus on minutia I didn't consider important, and simply didn't bother to remember. It's been a long time since then, but I want to say I'd read a story about a kid sledding on a hill with his friends, and then later to test your reading comprehension they'd ask you what color his shirt was.

Maybe that is reading comprehension and I am just bad at it, but to me shirt color was unimportant.

I can't imagine why just memorizing shirt colors would be worthwhile.

But if, for example, the author made it clear that the other kids were all wearing the same color shirt and the main character was not, you might infer something about their relationship from that--like maybe that the other kids all went to the same school, but the lead character went to a different school.

Details do matter for reading comprehension, because every detail is chosen. The real world is full of superfluous detail... writing, especially good writing, is not. Every word on the page represents a choice by the author--a choice to put that detail in, and to use that particular word instead of a different one.

The color thing maybe is an indirect test to see if you're actually imagining the scene vividly, instead of thinking of it as some abstract "sledding" activity. It's not really memorization... Though literal imagining of things is something not everyone can do, so it also seems out of place on a reading comprehension test.

Personally I don't really appreciate any comprehension tests that can be answered somewhat easily by computers, which the "shirt color" thing could be. And tests that are hacked by simple human algorithms are boring. In elementary school I got really far ahead in extra credit reading packets by realizing I could skip the reading and just go straight to the questions, skim for the answer, repeat. Somehow I think that certain peers in high school never mastered this trick since they were complaining about lack of time on the ACT... The better test of comprehension was to read something and then write about it, but the writing section of the ACT was separated and made optional.

And yet standardized test writers seem to think they understand those choices better than the authors themselves.

Critics have an opportunity to understand those choices better than the authors themselves because critics have the opportunity to look at the work from a different perspective.

Just because every bit of writing is a choice, that doesn't mean the author him- or herself fully understood why they made that choice. We're all shaped by our own life experiences, our family, the time in which we grew up, etc. Often, it's easier for a third party to connect those dots. That's why coaching and therapy works, for instance.

That said, when we're talking about standardized tests, they tend to (and should be) sticking to pretty well-understood and obvious examples of this sort of thing.

And of course, sometimes they're just not well done. Standardized test writers face the same challenges as every other writer, and I think we can guess that the very best writers probably do not end up in that job...

I'm sorry you completely lost me in the second paragraph. If reading comprehension comes anywhere near connecting an author's life experience to their word choice, then I'll gladly take my 0 and call the whole thing garbage. Sure, coaching and therapy work. They're also fields that churn out massive amounts of pseudo-science when it suits the author's ego.

If I do not understand why I write something, then some critic that cannot see into my mind is hardly going to make a better effort. Anything they said would be mostly speculation.

You aren't supposed to read the text and then answer the questions from memory.

You are supposed to look at the question and then find the answer in the text.

We were explicitly taught to read the questions first, then scan for the question's keywords in the text, and pick the answer based on the best match for that sentence alone.

I agree; I typically finished a book a week just reading between classes in highschool (and more at night), and was one of the only ones who could fully read the passage and still have time to answer all the questions. They were weirdly analytical and overly-literal, not something that made any sense in a "comprehension" test.

We had a few books at home, but more at my grandparents and my mom worked as a librarian for awhile. Reading was always for enjoyment and fun, so it was easy to read when 'required.' I never struggled with standardized tests. I was shocked and disappointed if I wasn't somewhere in the 90+ percent range on a test, and once scored an 800 on the GRE.

I read constantly when I was younger, mostly fiction. The first time I took one of those reading comprehension tests in grade 4 or something it said I was reading around a grade 12 level. I've also got a fairly high reading speed and retention level for fiction.

Non-fiction is different. I read slower and usually end up rereading sections a few times to fully understand them especially if I speed up and start skimming or something.

The thing is, I don't really read much fiction anymore. I find the stories all get kind of samey and findy self leaning towards technical books and non-fiction when I read now.

I do feel like comprehending fiction and non-fiction require two different skill sets in the brain. I've definitely been improving my comprehension of non-fiction stuff but I still don't feel like it's up there with fiction comprehension.

Poetry and stuff like that is something altogether different...i've never really been able to appreciate most poetry. I don't know why. I understand why it's impressive to be able to convey ideas through rythmic or patternised wording...I just don't really care that much.

I started reading from a very young age, as a hobby & used to read any & every book available around me. So much that had been termed as bookworm by siblings or people around me.

At age of 28 I took IELTS test or International English Language Testing System, which has four modules Reading Writing Speaking Listening. I always scored full bands on Reading & I believe its because of all those years of me reading & loving enjoying the process of it. Reading module for me felt like always too easy & simple, whereas others used to dread it. Although at same time, I was terrible at explaining the same module to others that why I think x is the answer to y question.

I read a lot of hindi comic books & literally used to feel like watching a movie with all those sound effects of punches flights laughs etc instead of just reading.

I think standardized tests are just not the way to measure reading comprehension, and questions like those in the article you linked are totally detached from reality. I personally managed to get by okay on them, but it seems pretty well understood that true comprehension - at least when it comes to fiction - is best gotten at in a more discussion based setting with more flexible interpretative possibilities.

I actually had a whole other experience being a really slow reader, and got taken out of other subjects to spend more time on it even though I scored "college level" on vocabulary. Always wondered if it's due to some mild dyslexia or something.

I always found that the reading comprehension part of the test as the easiest by far, and would generally score at the highest level the test could predict.

I can offer these two data points: CA High SChool Exit Exam percentile: Reading: 99%, Spelling: 12%.

10 years later Im still of the opinion that if you deduced my intent, how i spelt everything really doesn't matter all that much.