It was hypothesized that using asterisks as attention focusing devices would cause students to read all asteriked test items more carefully and would improve test scores of undergraduate education students. Sixty-three undergraduates majoring in elementary or special education were administered a 36-item objective test. Asterisks were used to focus students' attention on randomly selected items: one third of the tests had no asterisks, one third had asterisks with 25% of the items, and one third had asterisks with 50% of the items. The results of the analysis of variance are reported in tabular form. No differences were observed among the three forms of the test. Findings revealed that the presentation of asterisks with items of all difficulties failed to function effectively as an attention focusing item, and thereby increase test scores. (Author/GSK)