This study examines how third and fourth grade children work with a representative sample of test items designed to measure reading comprehension. The developmental and ethnocultural problems that children experience (whether they are rooted in the passage, the tasks, or the entire item) are discussed. From a passage-based perspective, the items are presented according to the various kinds of incomplete narratives that the passages convey and the various kinds of shifts that the passages (expository as well as narrative) require readers to make. From a task-based perspective, ways of classifying the tasks are developed with particular attention to the functional demands that they make. This developed framework helps to examine more broadly the passage-based perspective. The passage/task configurations are delineated that are particularly troubling from developmental and ethnocultural perspectives. This presentation allows for a cumulative grounding of the theoretical points made, and the detailed exposition of 22 items (consisting of nearly 400 pages) demonstrates how much goes into reading what is an apparently simple passage. (PN)