Story length and plausibility were varied to see whether these factors significantly affect children's ability to monitor their comprehension. A total of 19 third graders and 25 sixth graders were individually read four stories in a counterbalanced order. Each story had one of the following sets of characteristics: long, low plausibility; short, high plausibility; short, low plausibility; or long, high plausibility. Subjects were asked to serve as consultants in helping to find problems with the stories. Several content representations for each condition were used to avoid content repetition, but across subjects the same themes appeared equally often in long and short stories. Four probe questions of increasing specificity were asked following the presentation of each story. The first two probes were general, preceding and following a request that the child recall the story. The third probe asked for information relating to inconsistency in the story, but did not point it out. The fourth probe explicitly pointed out the inconsistency. Each subject's score was the probe number at which he or she explicitly stated the inference that led to the contradiction in the story. Factors in the analysis of variance were subject's age, story plausibility level, and story length, with repeated measures on the last two variables. Overall, length of story had a small effect, primarily on ease of reporting. Story concreteness and plausibility had a large effect on monitoring ability. (RH)