Vincent, Great. There is a "preview of coming attractions" aspect to a pretest if it covers bits of all parts of the course. Textbook authors often use something similar in their layout, beginning objectives, then an outline, then an overview, then key words or terms, each component adding more fundmental material until the student reaches the body of the text. I always encourage my students to read the foreward and preface to all their texts. These provide a message from the author what is significant about the text and perhaps, how to use it. What a great resource! Barry Westling