What's Your IQIQ Tests, Training, Puzzles & Research
ENEnglish TRTürkçe ESEspañol DEDeutsch RUРусский ZH中文 ARالعربية HIहिन्दी IDBahasa Indonesia
Take the IQ test
Take the test
More tests
Personality10Big Five, MBTI, DISCPsychology8Mood, stress, attachmentCareer fit12Strengths to job familiesReasoning9Logical, numerical, spatialProgramming15Python, JavaScript, SQLLanguage11Vocabulary and grammarAcademic20Math, science, humanitiesGeneral knowledgeTrivia across topics
All 50+ tests →
Sample item · logical reasoning261220?What comes next? Try a real question first.Try sample questions →
N-back · Stroop · Mental rotationTrain your weakest domain in 5 minutes a day.Browse games →
What does my IQ mean?
70808590100110115120130140150160
IQ percentile chart →Score converters
59 names · labelled by sourceFamous IQ scores — and how far to trust each one.Explore famous IQs →
Tests
Training
Questions
Research
Blog
About
ENTRESDERUZHARHIID
Home/Historical IQ Tests/Trail Making Test 1944
Reference entry · 1944 · US Army · public domain9 cited sources

Trail Making Test: 1 to 25, then 1–A–2–B.

Developed by John Partington in 1938 as "Partington's Pathways", the task entered the US Army's Individual Test Battery in 1944 under the name Trail Making Test.2,3 After Ralph Reitan's brain-damage studies in the 1950s it became one of the most widely used neuropsychological tests in clinical and research settings.3

Run Part A, then Part B →Cite this page
AT A GLANCE
PrecursorPartington's Pathways, John E. Partington, 1938 2,3
Army nameTrail Making Test, Army Individual Test Battery, 1944 2,6
Army useScreening general intellectual ability; examining brain-injured soldiers 2,6
Clinical useReitan, 1950s; Halstead-Reitan battery 3,6
PartsA: numbers · B: alternating numbers and letters 5
ScoreSeconds to complete; lower is better 7
Typical timesA ≈ 29 s, B ≈ 75 s 7
StatusPublic domain (US Army) 5
1 · ORIGINS

A motor-speed task that turned out to track intelligence

1938
Partington's testJohn E. Partington develops a task first intended to measure motor speed; early studies found moderate to high correlations with intelligence tests, so he concluded it captured general mental ability.6
1944
The Army names itA slightly modified version joins the US Army's Army Individual Test Battery under the name Trail Making Test, used as a task of general intelligence and to examine soldiers with brain injuries in WWII.6
1949
Partington's Pathways publishedPartington and Leiter describe it as Partington's Pathways Test; one account notes it was used to examine effects of opiate use on brain function.9
1955
Reitan and brain damageReitan's "The relation of the Trail Making Test to organic brain damage" (Journal of Consulting Psychology).2
1958
The standard citationReitan's validation paper in Perceptual and Motor Skills remains the field's most commonly cited reference for the test.1
1950s on
Halstead-ReitanIncorporated with minor modifications into the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery.9

Note on names and dates: sources call Partington's original the "Test of Distributed Attention" (one source prints "Distributed Attribution"), "Divided Attention Test" or "Partington's Pathways". The 1949 Partington–Leiter paper is cited with different journal titles and pages (Psychological Service Center Journal 1, 11–20, or Bulletin 1, 9–20). Reitan's clinical adaptation is dated 1950 by one source and 1955 by others.2,3,4,9

2 · PARTS A AND B

Two sheets, one pencil, no lifting

ANumbers in orderDraw lines connecting consecutively numbered circles on one worksheet.5
BNumbers and letters, alternatingConnect the same number of numbered and lettered circles on a second sheet, alternating between the two sequences: 1–A–2–B–3 …5
RuleAs fast as possibleConnect the circles as quickly as you can, without lifting the pencil and without skipping circles.2

Each part is preceded by a sample trail. If the examinee makes an error, the examiner points it out and the examinee resumes from the last correct circle — so errors cost time rather than points.8

3 · SCORING AND WHAT IT MEASURES

Seconds are the score

timeThe scoreBased on time to complete — 35 seconds yields a score of 35, and lower is better.7
29 sAverage Part AReported average completion time.7
75 sAverage Part BReported average completion time; age-matched norms exist.7
5 minStop ruleNot necessary to continue if a part cannot be completed within 5 minutes.7

The test is described as a measure of visual scanning, complex attention, psychomotor speed and mental flexibility.9 The MoCA screening test embeds a short trail-making-style number–letter alternation as a scaled-down proxy for the same set-shifting construct.1

4 · TRY A SHORT VERSION

Part A: 1 to 10

Tap the circles in number order as fast as you can. The clock starts when you tap 1.

Part A—
Part B—
B − A—
Run both parts to see the switching cost.
A 10-circle version (the real parts have 25). Tapping replaces drawing, so compare your A and B times rather than norms. For the full version, see our Trail Making game.
Tap 1 to start
5 · VARIANTS AND STATUS

Free to copy, adapted worldwide

Public domainBecause it was developed by the US Army, it can be reproduced without permission; many published norm sets are separately copyrighted.1
Letter-free versionsFor the Asian region, variants replace letters with symbols such as zodiac characters, or embed numbers in shapes.6
Color Trails TestD'Elia et al. (1996): Part A colours odd and even numbers; Part B pairs duplicate numbers in two colours.6
Clinical reachUsed for brain injury and dementia screening and to track recovery after injury.2
6 · REFERENCES

Sources cited on this page

  1. [1]Trail Making Test (TMT): Part A, Part B, and how it's scored. CASRAI guide (2026).casrai.org
  2. [2]Trail Making Test — task description and references. Millisecond Software test library.millisecond.com
  3. [3]Lowering the floor on Trail Making Test Part B: Psychometric evidence for a new scoring metric (2015). ResearchGate.researchgate.net
  4. [4]Trail Making Test. In Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer.link.springer.com
  5. [5]Protocol: A controlled trial of topiramate treatment for alcohol dependence in veterans with PTSD (NCT01749215) — TMT description.clinicaltrials.gov (PDF)
  6. [6]In the footsteps of a neuropsychological test classic — The Trail Making Test. Schuhfried (2026).schuhfried.com
  7. [7]Wikipedia contributors. Trail Making Test (accessed 29 Sept 2026).en.wikipedia.org
  8. [8]MrOS Visit 3 protocol: Trails B. NIA Aging Research Biobank (PDF).agingresearchbiobank.nia.nih.gov
  9. [9]Allen, D. N. Trail-Making Test. In The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology (2010). Wiley.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Primary sources as cited by the references: Army Individual Test Battery (1944), Manual of Directions and Scoring, War Department, Adjutant General's Office; Reitan, R. M. (1958), Validity of the Trail Making Test as an indicator of organic brain damage, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 8, 271–276.2,4

HOW TO CITE THIS PAGE
What's Your IQ. (2026). Trail Making Test (1944). In Historical IQ Tests Archive. Retrieved September 29, 2026, from /en/historical-iq-tests/trail-making-test-1944
EDITORIAL RECORD
First published2026
Last reviewed29 September 2026
Sources9 cited, all from one visible search
Open questionsExact 1944 form; Partington 1949 citation details
Canonical URLwhats-your-iq.com/en/historical-iq-tests/trail-making-test-1944
KEEP EXPLORING

Related historical tests

Same Army, same war1942
Army General Classification Test

The WWII group classification test.

ReferenceRead more →
Also executive control1935
Stroop Color-Word Test

Name the ink, not the word.

InteractiveTake it →
Same clinics1941
Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure

Copy, then recall, a complex figure.

ReferenceRead more →
Where it ended up1947
Halstead-Reitan Battery

The neuropsychology battery that adopted it.

ReferenceRead more →
Scanning under time1895
Bourdon Cancellation Test

Cross out targets fast.

InteractiveTake it →
Set shifting, again1948
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

Rule-switching as a flexibility measure.

InteractiveTake it →
Part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content under CC BY-SA 4.0. The TMT was developed by the US Army and is described as public domain; many published norm sets are separately copyrighted.
BibTeXRIS

Switching is one skill. Measure the rest.

Contemporary norms (mean 100, SD 15) and a four-domain breakdown, in about 30 minutes.

Take the modern IQ test →