Instruments
The RCT consisted of four passages selected from several educational sources with 10
multiple-choice (MC) questions each totaling 40 questions. The passages ranged from 267 to 357
words in length with an average of 319 words. The readability levels varied somewhat across the
passages that were fairly difficult for the EFL learners. The average Flesch Reading Ease value
was 55.20 for the four passages. The lexical density of the four passages ranged from .59 to .61.
The questions in the RCT included eight items on vocabulary knowledge, seven items on
identifying main ideas and summarization skills, seven items on generation of inferences and
prediction, 11 items on identifying supporting or specific details of the texts, and seven items on
knowledge of text structure and discourse organization. The RCT was pilot-tested among 13
students in the same university including a native speaker of English and some modifications
were made in the wording of questions and item difficulty. The one-hour test in a paper and
pencil format was administered to the participants during their regular English class time. The
Cronbach alpha coefficient for 40 MC items in the RCT for 146 cases was .70.