One-hundred and eight eleventh graders were assigned to three treatment groups: skimming/pretest, skimming/no-pretest, and no-skimming/pretest. Then the pretest groups responded to items in the pretest, while the no-pretest group responded to items unrelated to the stimulus passages. Four weeks later, the skimming groups were asked to skim the two passages (one science and one social science) under controlled time limits. All subjects then immediately took the post-test. No significant main effect differences were noted for social science after adjustment for differences. For the science passage, the raw scores and gain scores differences between the skimming/pretest and the no-skimming groups were both significant. The raw score difference between the skimming/pretest and the skimming/no-pretest groups was also significant. When pretest scores were used as a covariate in analyzing the post-test raw scores, a significant main effect due to the amount of background information was found. It was concluded that skimming was effective only when there was cueing via exposure to the pretest. Since the subjects did not skim the social science passage effectively, the author believed that skimming strategy might be used appropriately for some types of material, but not for others without special instruction. Tables and references are included. (AW)