This study investigates the situation when students on their own read a new mathematical text, and solve problems relevant to the text. The students worked together in pairs on a given text, about the absolute value of real numbers, with a video camera recording their activity. First, the students were instructed to read and discuss the text without any given tasks. Thereafter, the students were given exercises relevant to the text, and they were allowed to keep the text and use it when working with these exercises. Two pairs of students participated, all of them on their last year on the natural science programme at the Swedish upper secondary school. The observations reveal a variety of different activities among the students, and some questions also arise that would be interesting to examine in more detail.