A 15-question questionnaire concerning EFL reading habits was administered to both freshmen and first-year graduate students who were taking English courses in the 1996-97 academic year at the Chinese Culture University. These 15 questions consist of basic conceptions of reading, the physical behaviors such as mouth, eye and hand movement or placement, and the habit of using reading skills such as previewing, skimming and scanning. Theories of the above questions derived from EFL experts and writers are taken as ideal or effective reading habits. These ideal or effective reading habits are compared with students' responses to the questionnaire questions to detect how the latter deviate from the former. In addition, comparison is made regarding undergraduate and graduate students' responses to the above questions. Finally, implications and guidelines for improvement of EFL reading instruction are drawn from the questionnaire findings.
