The use of narrative test reports overcomes the major barrier to understanding reports, understanding the language that is used. Early attempts to utilize the computer in generating narrative reports include: (1) Teaching Information Processing System (TIPS), involving periodic collection of information from students regarding courses, which is summarized within a few hours into three types of reports--student, section learer, and professor; (2) Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) Score Reports, involving eighty distinct sentences, in which variable phrases might be embedded, which are used to compose 75 distinct paragraphs, which in turn are combined to produce the 100 letters needed to interpret all combinations of scores; (3) Programmed Composition of Psychological Test Reports, involving selection of one of eight possible statements for each of the 101 scales of the MMPI (or the 124 of the MMPI and the CPI). Arguments can be made for and against the use of narrative reports. (KM)