What's Your IQ

WHY FIVE FORMS

Testing 200,000 men a month without leaks

From April 1918, Army examiners were testing more than 200,000 men a month in groups of up to a few hundred. If every room used one booklet, answers would travel through a camp within days. The Alpha was printed in five forms, numbered 5 to 9. Each kept the same structure and difficulty but had different items, so forms could be rotated between rooms and sittings.

All five used the same examiner's procedure and time limits. Their scores were converted to the same A–E letter grades, so a recruit's grade didn't depend on which form he happened to get.

THE FIVE FORMS ON ONE QUESTION

The 1920 key for Test 3 gives the position of the right answer for every form. For the same question number, the correct option moves around:

F5F6F7F8F9

Item 1

11112

Item 2

22222

Item 3

21233

Item 4

13321

Item 5

31322

Item 6

32131

First six rows of the Test 3 key (1920, p. 71). The numbers are the position (1–3) of the best answer.

TEST 1 · FOLLOWING ORAL DIRECTIONS · FORM 6

The examiner's script, word for word

Test 1 was read aloud. Recruits marked circles, squares and number rows in their booklets on the word “Go!”, and the examiner allowed 5 to 25 seconds per item. The figures themselves were printed in the booklet and don't survive legibly in the scan, so this test isn't playable here. Step through the twelve Form 6 directions as the examiner read them.

ITEM 1 OF 12“Attention! 'Attention' always means 'Pencils up.' Look at the circles at 1. When I say 'go' but not before, make a cross in the second circle and also a figure 1 in the third circle. Go!”Allow not over 5 seconds.

Transcribed from the Examiner's Guide in Yoakum & Yerkes (1920), pp. 56–58. OCR errors corrected against the sense of the text; wording otherwise unchanged.

TEST 3 · PRACTICAL JUDGMENT · FORM 6

“This is a test of common sense”

All sixteen Form 6 questions, in the original order and wording. Pick the best of three answers. The recruits had 1½ minutes; the timer below runs the same, and you can finish untimed afterwards.

1:30

1.If plants are dying for lack of rain, you should

2.A house is better than a tent, because

3.Why does it pay to get a good education? Because

4.If the grocer should give you too much money in making change, what is the right thing to do?

5.Why should food be chewed before swallowing?

6.If you saw a train approaching a broken track you should

7.If you are lost in a forest in the daytime, what is the thing to do?

8.It is better to fight than to run, because

9.Why are warships painted gray? Because gray paint

10.Why should all parents be made to send their children to school? Because

11.The reason that many birds sing in the spring is

12.Gold is more suitable than iron for making money because

13.The cause of echoes is

14.We see no stars at noon because

15.Some men lose their breath on high mountains because

16.Why do some men who could afford to own a house live in a rented one? Because

0 of 16 answered

Items from the Form 6 booklet, Yoakum & Yerkes (1920), pp. 222–223; key from p. 71. Scored as the Army scored it: one point per correct answer. A raw Test 3 score alone was never converted to a letter grade.

THE REST OF THE BOOKLET

Eight tests, same as every form

Tests 2 and 4–8 of Form 6 are printed in the 1920 book as tables turned sideways on the page. The scanned text of those pages is unreadable, so we haven't transcribed them rather than guess. The page scans are linked below. Item counts and time limits were the same for all five forms.

1Following Oral Directions12 items read aloud by the examiner.Script above

2Arithmetical Problems20 word problems.Scan only

3Practical Judgment16 three-choice questions.Playable

4Synonym–Antonym40 word pairs: same or opposite.Scan only

5Disarranged Sentences24 scrambled sentences: true or false.Scan only

6Number Series Completion20 series: write the next two numbers.Scan only

7Analogies40 items.Scan only

8Information40 general-knowledge items.Scan only

Open the Form 6 booklet scan (from p. 218) →Answer keys, all forms (pp. 70–77)

1919 · KANSASReprinted for schoolsUnder a 1919 letter of permission from the War Department, the Bureau of Educational Measurements and Standards at Kansas State Normal School in Emporia reprinted the Alpha in Forms 5 to 9 for use in schools. The Smithsonian holds a Form 7 copy.

1921 · NEW YORKBregman's combined AlphaElsie O. Bregman prepared a revised Alpha for the Psychological Corporation that combined questions from all five wartime forms. It is a different test from the Kansas reprint.

READING THE ITEMS NOWCommon sense, of its timeSeveral Form 6 answers depend on 1918 assumptions, such as why it is better to fight than to run, or whether renting beats owning. The key rewarded what the test's authors thought sensible. That is part of why the Alpha's results by group were so contested.

REFERENCES

[1]Yoakum, C. S., & Yerkes, R. M. (Eds.). (1920). Army Mental Tests. New York: Henry Holt. Form 6 booklet pp. 218–233; Examiner's Guide pp. 56–58; keys pp. 70–77.archive.org

[2]Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Psychological Test with Directions, Army Group Examination Alpha Form 7 (Kansas reprint; Bregman 1921 directions).si.edu

[3]Carson, J. (1993). Army Alpha, army brass, and the search for army intelligence. Isis, 84(2), 278–309.academia.edu

[4]Wikipedia. Army Alpha.en.wikipedia.org

Editorial record: Test 1 directions and Test 3 items transcribed from the Internet Archive text of Yoakum & Yerkes (1920); Test 3 answers checked against the book's key. The 200,000-a-month figure is from Carson (1993). The earlier page's “about 340,000 recruits took Form 6” is not repeated here, as no source for it was found.

KEEP EXPLORING

1918 · Take the full testThe Army Alpha (Form 5)All 200 Form 5 items, playable and scored, with the letter-grade table.1918 · The other parallel formsArmy Alpha Forms 7, 8, 9The remaining three forms from the same 1920 publication.1918 · The non-verbal companionThe Army BetaPictures, mazes and X-O series, given by pantomime to recruits who couldn't read English.

Part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content under CC BY-SA 4.0; the 1918 test material is public domain.

Army Alpha, Form 6: same test, different questions.

Testing 200,000 men a month without leaks

The examiner's script, word for word

“This is a test of common sense”

Eight tests, same as every form

Five forms, one grade. Today: modern norms.