A study examined whether the reading comprehension of students with rich domain-specific knowledge will be better than that of students without it and whether assessed general skills will be correlated significantly with reading comprehension performance for students without specific knowledge, but negligible for the students with much specific knowledge. Subjects, 36 undergraduate engineering students and 321 music students enrolled in educational psychology courses, were first asked to read the music text and then take the comprehension test. Next they were given the engineering text and the corresponding comprehension test, and finally the Critical Thinking Appraisal test. Results showed that relying on domain-specific knowledge is more effective than relying on general reading skills as the basis for constructing representation, and that general reading skills made a significant contribution to reading comprehension for students who did not have content-specific knowledge, but a negligible one for students who did. (Tables of findings are included.) (EL)