Much of what has developed in the testing of reading harkens back to the days of the "Cult of Efficiency" movement in education that can be largely attributed to Frederick Winslow Taylor. Taylor spent most of his productive years studying time and motion in an attempt to streamline industrial production so that people could work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Education embraced most of Taylor's principles in the early 1900s, and journal articles of the period have documented the extensive influence of this "Cult of Efficiency" on the thinking of educational leaders. It is more than coincidental that standardized tests in subject areas first appeared around 1910, when Taylor and his educational followers were most vocal. The essay test was also replaced with objective tests that took little time to complete and less time to grade. Speed and factual recall, rather than critical comprehension, continue to represent the two most widely tested aspects of reading, although research has confirmed that speed is not an ample measure of reading ability. The question that must concern today's educators is whether the back to basics/competency testing movement is a return to that philosophy of efficiency. (HTH)