Partially reinforced shear walls are used in regions of relatively low seismic risk. Nevertheless, these structures should be capable to resist some lateral motion. The purpose of this paper is to examine the behavior of in-plane cyclic load tests of typical partially-grouted masonry shear walls and the capability of FEM/I in simulating their response. FEM/I is a nonlinear finite element program originally developed for reinforced masonry shear walls with a uniform grid of orthogonal reinforcement at close spacing. FEM/I has successfully simulated the response of fully grouted uniformly distributed reinforced masonry walls [Ewing, 1987]. FEM/I uses a smeared property approach in which the reinforcing steel and masonry composite is modeled as a single material. The applicability of FEM/I to partially grouted partially reinforced masonry shear walls is measured by comparing FEM/I force-displacement cycles, peak lateral forces, strains, energy dissipation and crack patterns with those generated from the experimental tests conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Partially reinforced shear walls can be modeled in FEM/I by smearing the steel over the blocks which are grouted and reinforced. The ungrouted blocks can be modeled as reinforced blocks with a reinforcement ratio of zero. This approach was shown to be adequate when the displacements and cracks were small. As the cracks increase in size, the smeared property assumption can no longer adequately represent the wall• s geometry and it's property. The result is a poor prediction of both local and global behavior at large displacements. The ratio of the lateral loads at the first major event (FME) demonstrate a good relationship in the forces generated by FEM/I for each wall with the exception Wall I. Results from Walls 3, 5, 9 and 11 exhibit FEM/I was able to predict the lateral load adequately up to the FME. The ratio of the lateral load up to the FME ranges from 0.9 - 1.3. After the occurrence of the FME, FEM/I overpredicts the lateral load considerably. In each of the finite element analyses, FEM/I overestimated the peak strength of the masonry specimens. The FEM/I models for Wall 11 and Wall 3 produced the best prediction of the peak strength. The difference for these two walls in the FEM/I predicted maximum lateral load and experimental data were 31 o/o and 41 o/o, respectively. Individual force displacement cycles are plotted at the various stages in the displacement history. FEM/I performs fairly well in predicting the force displacement response of the experiment. Walls 3, 5, 9 and 11 exhibit a good force displacement relationship for the first half of their displacement history until the development of major cracks. Wall 7 corresponded well with the experiment during the initial stages (Cycles 1 -17) of its displacement history. FEM/I did not produce good results in representing the cracking pattern generated by the experimental study. The inability of modeling the crack pattern is also shown in the differences in the plots for the amount of energy dissipated. FEM/I did reasonably well in the prediction of yielding in the vertical reinforcement. Local stress and strain of masonry predicted by FEM/I did not match the experimental data.