Over the past few years a substantial body of research has yielded evidence that the semantic structure of elementary arithmetic word problems influences children's strategies to solve them. The study reported in this document considered three other task characteristics in addition to semantic structure: (1) the order of presentation of the two given numbers; (2) the order of presentation of the two given sets; and (3) the size of the difference between the two given numbers. A paper-and-pencil test on word problems involving addition and subtraction was administered to 85 children in four second-grade classes. Twenty pupils in first-grade classes were individually interviewed. Evidence was found in favor of the impact on children's strategy choice of the first and second variables; however, the data do not support the importance of the third factor. (Three pages of references and 12 tables outlining results are provided). (MNS)