Page:Scientific Monthly, volume 14.djvu/38

 Comprehension. All five series were given, or 25 in all. There were eight failures. (About a 10 or 11-year performance). The following errors are typical:

Why are people who are born deaf usually dumb also?—"Don't know."

You are hauling a load of lumber; the horses get stuck in the mud, and there is no help to be had. What would you do?—"Go for help."

Why has New York become the largest city in America?—"Because of its size and wealth. It covers such a large area."

Why should women and children be rescued first in a shipwreck?—"There ain't any reason."

Why should people have to get a license to get married?—"There would be too many marriages."

Sentence Construction (3 words). All five series given, 15 items. All the responses were correct. (This test belongs at 9 or 10 years).

The scoring of this series of individual tests has not been standard ized and age norms are lacking, but I estimate that the value of K s performance is about equal to that of an average child of 12 or 13 years.

By the usual method of scoring only 8 of the 20 responses are correct. Although reliable age norms for this list are not available, this is probably no better than children of 9 or 10 years ordinarily do. The haziness of K's mental processes and his difficulty in holding to a goal are especially striking. The average time is 3.3 seconds, as compared with the Woodworth-Wells norm of 1.11 seconds for adults. This large difference is in line with K's time record in the Kent-Rosanoff test and suggests marked intellectual inhibition.