Test strip is when you place your negatives in the neg carrier and place a strip of photography under the enlarger.I cover the paper with cardboard so that you could only see a little bit of the paper.I then set the timer to 2 seconds and pressed the red button.I then uncovered more and repeated this until all the paper is uncovered.Once I had done that stage I placed the paper in the developer and followed through the process.You do this process so you know which time is best to use to create a print .