> How would one go about testing one's
reading rate? I often suspect that I read
slower than average for someone with my
hobbies and level of education, but I've never
known of a good way to check.

Find something to read. Find a stop watch.
Mark a starting place in your thing to read. Set
the stopwatch for five minutes and start
reading. When the timer goes off, stop reading
and mark your place. Count the words, divide
by five, and there's your answer. If that's not
scientific enough for you, do it a whole bunch
of times and average the results.

Gri"O.S.A."shny