32 PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS OF TESTING INTELLIGENCE 



in which performance can not be graduated, but can 

 only be scored right or wrong (+ or ). Failure 

 to reply at all is counted l minus' just as much as an 

 expressly given wrong answer. It must be admitted 

 also that it is often quite hard to decide in a given 

 case whether to rate an answer + or : the only 

 way to do this with certainty is to practise for a 

 long time and to observe uniformly the criteria that 

 have been chosen for the decision. 



The tests are extremely varied in nature. 



Memory is tested, on the one hand as immediate memory for 

 digits and sentences of different lengths, for a story that is read, 

 and for three simple orders given together, and on the other hand 

 as possession of simple everyday knowledge (days of the week, 

 months, coins, right and left). Size and availability of vocabulary 

 is determined by the number of words that can be named in three 

 minutes. 



Since 1911 a test of suggestibility (judgment of line-lengths) 

 has been introduced. 



Motor abilities are tested by some tests of drawing from copy, 

 paper cutting and writing. Practical accomplishments are in- 

 volved in counting coins, making change for a larger coin, exe- 

 cuting the three commissions just mentioned. 



Mbst of the tests, however, aim more directly at intellectual 

 activities. Comparison and discrimination are dealt with in va- 

 rious forms, e. g., sensory comparison (of small boxes of like ap- 

 pearance, but unlike weight), logical discrimination from memory, 

 both between concrete terms (wood and glass, fly and butterfly) 

 and between abstract terms (lies and mistakes) ; esthetic com- 

 parison (drawings of beautiful and ugly faces). There are also 

 tested defining of both concrete and abstract terms, the completing 

 of omissions in a text, the combining of three words into a sen- 

 tence, orderly arranging both of sensory material (putting five 

 little boxes in order according to their weight), and of logical, 

 verbal material (placing jurnbled-up words in a sentence) ; the 

 intelligent apprehension of a picture ; critical apprehension, both 

 optical (noting omissions in drawings of persons), and logical 

 (recognizing inconsistencies in certain sentences) ; practical moral 

 intelligence (by questions in the form : 'What's the thing to do 

 when so-and-so happens?'). 



Many of the tests recur in different age-levels in 

 such a way that the standard of performance de- 



