Stephen, I don't always pretest, but when I do, a good place to start is by examining the course objectives and even daily objectives, since it will be from these that graded testing will originate. I will choose about 25-30 essential points that I expect students to master by course end. If 2/3 or more of the class answers a question correctly, that tells me I can probably spend a bit less time on that category. As a pretest, I don't assess skills, nor do I consider visual, auditory, or tactile learning traits. And since I don't grade pretests, I have not found students to feel discouraged. Barry Westling