Of the four language skills, reading is probably tested most often, and it may seem to be the easiest to test. However, testing reading proficiency has its difficulties, and the test constructor must be aware of several issues. Reading involves a number of skills, and the number and complexity of these must be recognized. Choosing the text to test reading can have an impact on the results. It is useful to use a variety of texts, and they should reflect the goals of the language teaching situation, whether, for example, the intended language use will be academic or conversational. It must be recognized that background knowledge plays a part in comprehension, so that intended difficulty levels are not confused by the test taker's lack of familiarity with the context. Reading tasks frequently begin with assessment of low-level skills and often involve word and sentence recognition tasks. In testing middle and higher-level students, true/false questions, multiple-choice items, short answer or completion questions, and ordering tasks are often used. The selection of test items and passages should reflect the context in which the student expects to use the language. (SLD)