A somewhat more difficult task (with a difficulty value of 318) 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 a 5 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 received a score of 4. Finally,
plausibility of distractor was scored a 3 because the text contains information that may
serve to distract the reader.
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