This verbal memory study considers only simple sentences and examines learner performance under the two conditions of audio presentation and printed presentation. Learner performance is compared when required either to recognize sentences identical to those in the original list or, alternatively, to recognize non-identical sentences incorporating the gist of the original sentences but with one or more of the original words replaced by synonyms. In addition, memory for simple, active, declarative sentences is compared with that for each of the principal transformations--from active to passive, from affirmative to negative, and from declarative to either interrogative or exclamatory. Finally, since there is growing ambiguity with respect to word frequency as a factor in remembering, three levels of sentence subject word frequency are included. Subjects used were 87 university freshmen. Results suggest that: (1) memory for spoken language and for print share much of the same effect, (2) memory for interrogatives is somewhat facilitated when such sentences are also in the active voice, but there is little effect or none when they are passive, and (3) word familiarity, indexed by frequency of use, is not always the aid in sentence recall, or at least in recognition, as was thought. (DO)