Webb, Gold, and Qi (1989) systematicallyvaried the form of presentation of problems with theform of response by presenting problems using words, algebraicequations, graphs, or pictures, and requiring high-schoolstudents to respond using numbers, words, graphs, or pictures.They found that the translation that was required when a problemwas presented in a form different from the required responseadded a degree of difficulty to the situation. For example,students demonstrated a greater conceptual understandingin solving a problem presented using words and that requireda response in words (Example 1) than they did on a problempresented using words and that required a numerical response(Example 2).