Abstract Let A be a subset of the natural numbers, and let F A n ( x 1 , ..., x n ) = 〈χ A ( x 1 ), ..., χ A ( x n )〉, where χ A is the characteristic function of A . An oracle Turing machine with oracle A could certainly compute F A n with n queries to A . There are some sets A (e.g.. the halting set) for which F A n can be computed with substantially fewer than n queries. One key reason for this is that the questions asked to the oracle can depend on previous answers; i.e., the questions are adaptive . We examine when it is possible to save queries. A set A is terse if the computation of F A n from A requires n queries. A set A is superterse if the computation of F A n from any set requires n queries. A set A is verbose if F A 2 n −1 can be computed with n queries to A . The range of possible query savings is limited by the following theorem: F A n cannot be computed with only ⌊ log n ⌋ queries to a set X unless A is recursive. In addition we produce the following: (1) a verbose set in each truth-table degree and a superterse set in each nonzero truth-table degree; and (2) an r.e. verbose set in each r.e. truth-table degree and an r.e. terse set in each nonzero r.e. Turing degree.