The three objectives of this study were to evaluate the following: a test of literary judgment for use with community college students, the free responses of students to passages in the test, and the use of original literary selections and distortions of them as a classroom tool. The test of literary judgment used original poetry and prose selections and mutilations composed by the test's constructor. The test takers chose the examples they thought were the originals. This test was administered to 96 freshmen and 83 sophomore students, and then students at both grade levels were divided into two groups. One group from each grade level was asked to write free responses to their choices. These same groups were also administered a reading test. On the final day of the study, all gropus again took the original test. From the findings, several conclusions were made, including the observation that the technique of pairing superior and inferior selections seems to provide a useful teaching tool for directing student attention toward the comparative evaluation of literary devices or elements. (Author/TS)