Maybe this would also be a stupid reply DreamerGirl7 since you don't want an answer. But would just like to throw this in. Before I got a meter ($15.00 US plus shipping for a used one on E-bay) I used the test strips and also the liquid where you put a sample in a little bottle. The one where you use the little bottle was so much easier to read IMO. The color change for the different levels were much more drastic. IMO the test strips sucked, to hard to read and therefore useless to me.:joint1: