Healy Pictorial Completion Test (1914)

What was in the box

10right pieces

The objects cut from the scene, mounted on blocks to be put back.¹

30other objects

Plausible-looking pieces that complete no scene sensibly.¹

10blanks

Pieces with nothing on them at all.¹

TRY IT · 10 SCENES · 50 PIECES

Fill each hole with the piece that makes sense

Tap a scene, then a piece from the tray. As on the original board, the tray holds the ten right pieces, thirty other objects and ten blanks.¹

0 / 10

Tray · placing into scene 1

Scenes and pieces written for this page as words, not Healy's painted board. How a child arranged the pieces was used to flag "delinquents" and "defective or aberrational" individuals, and children were asked to explain the story they had made.^3,4 Today that inference isn't considered sound. Here an absurd placement is simply marked wrong.

A board in print for decades

The boards were made and sold by C. H. Stoelting of Chicago. The manual shipped with Test I was a reprint of Healy's 1914 article.⁶

1869William Healy is born. He lives until 1963.²

1914Healy publishes the article that becomes the manual for Pictorial Completion Test I.⁶

1917A second test, built from a series of life events, is first shown at the American Psychological Association meeting.⁵

1918Test II is published, copyrighted to the Judge Baker Foundation in Boston, with colour illustrations by Marguerite Davis.²

1930Stoelting's catalogue still lists Test I: about 10 × 14 inches, on three-ply wood with cloth backing.¹

1936+A later boxed version, matching Stoelting's 1936 catalogue, is now in the Smithsonian.⁶

Into batteries, and into the Army

TEST IIA series of life eventsThe second test showed a sequence of events, each with a square missing. The replacement was chosen from 60 small illustrations.⁵

WHAT IT MEASUREDIntelligence and problem solvingMuseum records describe it as measuring intelligence and problem-solving capacity, and one kit as focused on general aptitude and problem solving.⁵

IN MUSEUMSSurviving boardsExamples survive at the Smithsonian, the Science Museum in London and university collections, gifts from old psychology departments.⁶

References

[1]Healy, W. Pictorial completion test I (Stoelting catalogue description, 1930). Internet Archive.archive.org

[3]Healy Pictorial Completion Test I (Healy, W., 1914). Randolph College Psychology Collection, eHive.ehive.com

[4]The Healy Pictorial Completion Test I. Puzzle Museum (May 2014).puzzlemuseum.com

[5]Healy Pictorial Completion Test, Chicago, 1921 (Test 2). Science Museum Group Collection.collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk

[6]Psychological test, form board, Healy Pictorial Completion Test I. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian.americanhistory.si.edu

HOW TO CITE THIS PAGE

What's Your IQ. (2026). Healy Pictorial Completion Test (1914). In Historical IQ Tests Archive. Retrieved October 1, 2026, from /en/historical-iq-tests/healy-pictorial-completion-1914

EDITORIAL RECORD

First published2026

Last reviewed1 October 2026

Sources6: museum catalogue records, the maker's description and biographies

Open questionsHealy's original scoring rules and norms; the exact year Test II was first used

Canonical URLwhats-your-iq.com/en/historical-iq-tests/healy-pictorial-completion-1914

Related historical tests

Same no-words idea1920

Pintner Non-Language Mental Test

Healy's board needed no reading, only a sense of what belonged in each scene. Pintner's group test took the no-language idea into the classroom.

InteractiveTake it →

Another hands-on board1923

Kohs Block-Design Test

Kohs's coloured blocks continued the tradition of performance tests you work with your hands. Both came from the same era of Chicago-made apparatus.

InteractiveTake it →

Pictures for those who couldn't read1918

Army Beta

The Army's pictorial Beta was given to recruits who couldn't take the verbal Alpha. Like Healy's board, it avoided depending on reading.

InteractiveTake it →

Testing and delinquency1910

Goddard's Binet-Simon Translation

In the 1910s, tests were increasingly used to explain delinquency. Healy's board, like Goddard's Binet, was used to classify children who came before the courts and institutions.

InteractiveTake it →

Part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content under CC BY-SA 4.0. Surviving boards are held by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and university collections.

BibTeX RIS

Ten holes, fifty pieces.

What was in the box

Fill each hole with the piece that makes sense

A board in print for decades

Into batteries, and into the Army

References

Related historical tests

Pictures without words. Reasoning without a board.