Hi Roy, You make a good point about the challenges many adult learners have as they come into the classroom for the first time after being out of school for a length of time. This is why I make my pretest like a game which reduces pressure on the students while getting me the information I need. I give them definitions, words and letters and have them explain what they know about them. I make it light and humorous so everyone is relaxed during the discussion after the pretest that way the students can leave the class feeling that they had a good first class meeting. Gary