After the second pass programming (FIG. 4C), the read thresholds RH10, RH00 and RH01 are used which correspond to those of FIG. 4A but are higher by some threshold amount, in this case ??, in order to remain approximately mid-way between the repositioned distributions. [0036] The programming and reading techniques being described are beneficially applied to a memory system, such as flash EEPROM, t