Laura, Pretests help the instructor plan how best meet the needs of their students. If there is a wide disparity among the class makeup, I've had the stronger students serve as peer tutors to the waeker students. Usually, every one benefits as the stronger students feel they're helping and of course, the weaker students receive the benefit of the assistance received. Another variation of this is when in small groups, I've matched one strong student with 2-3 weaker students. Usually the outcome is the same. On the other hand, based on pretest results, I've prepared higher level, more challenging assignments for the stronger students, allowing me to spend more time with individual or groups of students at the weaker end of the spectrum. Barry Westling