This study compared the effect of two notetaking strategies (Cornell Notes vs. REAP) on EFL secondary school students' critical reading skills. The Alternative Treatment Design with Pretest was used where three intact classes of first-year EFL secondary school students were randomly assigned as a control group and two experimental groups. All participants were administered to a critical reading skills test both before and after the treatment. For 12 weeks, participants in the control group received their regular instruction while those in the first experimental group used Cornell Notes and those in the second experimental group used REAP. Using one-way analysis of variance did not reveal any significant differences among the means of scores of the three groups on the pretest of critical reading skills (f=0.36, p>0.05). However, the one-way analysis of variance indicated that significant differences existed among the means of scores of the three groups on the posttest of critical reading skills (f=14.45, p<0.05). Moreover, three subsequent independent-samples t-tests comparing posttest scores indicated that students in each experimental group scored significantly higher than those in the control group (t=3.90, p<0.05; t=5.03, p<0.05, respectively) and that there is no statistically significant difference between means of scores of students in the two experimental groups (t=1.35, p>0.05). Therefore, it was concluded that both Cornell Notes and REAP had a significant effect on EFL secondary school students' critical reading skills.