A somewhat more difficult task (318), one near the top of Level 3, involves an article about cotton diapers and directs the reader to “list three reasons why the author prefers to use disposable rather than cotton diapers.” This task is made more difficult because of several of our process variables. First, type of match was scored as difficult because the reader had to provide multiple responses, each of which required a text-based inference. Nowhere in the text does the author say, “I prefer cotton diapers because…”. These inferences are made somewhat more difficult because the type of information being requested is a “reason” rather than something more concrete. This variable also was coded as difficult because of its abstractness. Finally, plausibility of distractor was scored as moderate because the text contains information that may serve to distract the reader.

An additional task falling in Level 4 on the Prose literacy scale (338) directs the reader to use the information from a pamphlet about hiring interviews to “write in your own words one difference between the panel and the group interview.” Here the difficulty does not come from locating information in the text. Rather than merely locating a fact about each type of interview, the reader needs to integrate what they have read to infer a characteristic on which the two types of interviews differ. Experience from other surveys of this kind reveal that tasks in which readers are asked to contrast information are more difficult, on average, than tasks in which they are asked to find similarities. Thus, type of match was scored as complex and difficult. Type of information was scored as being difficult as well because it directs the reader to provide a difference. Differences tend to be more abstract in that they ask for the identification of distinctive or contrastive features related in this case to an interview process. Plausibility of distractor was judged as being easy because no distracting information was present in the text. Thus this variable was not seen as contributing to the overall difficulty of this task.

The most difficult task on the prose literacy scale (377) falls in the lower range of Level 5 and required readers to look at an announcement from a personnel department and to “list two ways in which CIEM (an employee support initiative within a company) helps people who lose their jobs because of departmental reorganization.” Type of match was scored difficult because the question contained multiple phrases that the reader needed to keep in mind when reading the text. In addition, readers had to provide multiple responses and make low text-based inferences. Type of information received a moderate score because readers were looking for a purpose or function and plausibility of distractor was scored as relatively difficult. This task is made somewhat more difficult because the announcement is organized around information that is different from what is being requested in the question. Thus while the correct information is listed under a single heading, this information is embedded under a list of headings describing CIEM’s activities for employees looking for other work. Thus, this list of headings in the text serves as an excellent set of distractors for the reader who does not search for or locate the phrase in the question containing the conditional information – those who lose their jobs because of a departmental reorganization.