Using 33 college freshmen enrolled in a basic reading skills course as subjects, a study was conducted for two purposes: (1) to determine the effects of direct exposure to the topics of the selections in the New Jersey College Basic Skills Placement Test (NJCBSPT) on their posttest scores, and (2) to investigate whether students exposed to the topics would indicate awareness of this knowledge on a teacher-made measure--the Prior Knowledge Inventory (PKI). The students were divided into two groups, randomly designated as the experimental and control group. Both groups, taught by the same instructor, received the same syllabus with the same required texts and quizzes. The experimental group received articles on the topics of the NJCBSPT; to control for the Hawthorne Effect the control group also received supplementary articles, similar in length and format, but unrelated to the test topics. During the last week of class, both groups were given the PKI. Results indicated that the experimental group did not do significantly better than did the control group. However, while the treatment variable did not affect the results, the reading program for both groups did show significant positive results. The total group went from a pretest mean of 24.06 to a posttest mean of 29.38. (Appendixes include a list of articles used in the class and the Prior Knowledge Inventory.) (HOD)