It has been reasonably well established that test takers can sometimes answer correctly some reading comprehension passages without reading the passages on which the questions are based. This issue was studied with the new Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in a study designed to determine the strategies by which examinees are able to achieve better-than-chance performances without reading the passages. Sets of sample reading comprehension questions were administered, without passages, to 350 verbally-able students in 8 secondary schools across the country. After completing the task, students were asked to complete a questionnaire describing the strategies they had used. The most often cited strategies involved choosing answers on the basis of consistency with other questions and reconstructing the main theme of a missing passage from all the questions and answers in a set. These strategies were also more likely to result in successful performance on individual test items than any of the many other possible approaches. Implications for the construct validity of the new SAT are discussed. One figure and 14 tables present analysis results. (Contains 25 references.) (Author/SLD)