Page:Scientific Monthly, volume 14.djvu/36

 Ingenuity test. Showed no comprehension of the task whatever, although I twice explained it and even solved the first problem for him.

The mental age score is 12 years, 5 months. The distribution of successes and failures does not differ especially from what one might expect of an average child of 12 or 13 years. Qualitatively, however, many of the responses are characteristically different from those of an average child of the same mental age. They show more of what Binet called "maturity" of intelligence, and less of "rectitude."

K's 14 years of schooling have brought his vocabulary about a half year or year above the average of his mental age and have made him a fairly fluent reader (pronouncer of words). He makes change quickly and solves simple arithmetical problems, but in practical judgment, in finding likenesses and differences, and in a certain inaccuracy and slowness of thought suggesting faint awareness, his stupidity is more apparent.

Total score, 79 points, or about median for 13 years.

The following failures were typical:

Total score, 48 points. Satisfactory age standards are not available for this scale, but 48 points is probably not far from average for 13 years. Typical responses include the following:

Digits Forward. Memory span, 5 digits.

Repeating Sentences. Failed on all sentences of more than 14 syllables.

Comprehension Questions. (b) Actions versus words—"What they usually do is what they usually say." Asked to explain, "What a person usually does, he has his mind made up and if he should say anything that way his mind would run in the same order." (c) Why honesty is the best policy—"Because you're never caught in a lie; if you are, always there's nothing to hinder you from getting a position."

Definitions. (d) Conceit "One who only thinks about himself. One who thinks nobody is as good as he is—the branches of work what he's in—pretty, or anything that way."

Analogies. Whole is to part as six is to—"half." (f) Sunday is to Saturday as January is to—"February."