I fully agree with your statement on knowing the words and statements in the hearing tests can skew the test results. Were you tested with the series of nonsense sentences? It's not like "The dog chased the cat and the boy hit the ball". They don't make sense, so are pretty hard to memorize. The SPIN (SPeech in Noise) test is also a must. It starts out with sentences spoken in quiet, and gradually increases the noise. Needless to say it's a test that is a bit stressful. Were you tested at a cochlear implant center? New research literature on cochlear implants suggests that people who would benefit from them are not being referred as they should be.