The primary aim of this study was to ascertain whether expectations affect children's performance on a measure designed to assess development of understanding of the Minimum Distance Principle (MDP) and its exceptions. There were three major hypotheses: (1) sentences harmonious with expectation should be more easily understood than neutral sentences, and contrary sentences should be most difficult to understand, regardless of the verb; (2) there should be fewer misinterpretations of sentences using the verb "to tell" than of those using the verb "to promise," regardless of expectation; and (3) performance should increase with grade level. The test population consisted of 14 males and 14 females from each of the three levels (K-2). It was concluded that there seems to be a point at which expectations have the greatest effect on performance. There were differences between the harmonious and the contrary mean on "tell" sentences in kindergarten and grade one, even though the mean number of correct responses was relatively high. In grade two there was no such difference. (Author)