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Home/Historical IQ Tests/Trabue Language Scales
TEACHERS COLLEGE · 1916 SCALES · 1919 KEY

Trabue's Completion-Test Language Scales: one word on each blank

Each scale was a sheet of sentences with words missing, getting harder towards the bottom, with a seven- or five-minute limit. What made them usable in schools was the key: page after page of words Trabue's scorers had accepted, half-accepted or refused.

Be scored by the 1919 key →The nine scales
Name ____________Grade ____Write only one word on each blankAge ____Time Limit: Seven minutes
LANGUAGE SCALE B
1. We like good boys ______ girls.2. The ______ is barking at the cat.3. The stars and the ______ will shine tonight.4. Time ______ often more valuable ______ money.
Sentences 1–4 of Scale B as printed in the 1919 Key [1]. The full scale has ten.

Nine scales, two age bands

Scales B to F were for elementary and high school, with seven minutes each. Scales J to M were for high school and adults, with five minutes each. All were sold by the Teachers College Bureau of Publications [1]. Select a scale to read its first and last sentences.

Elementary and high school7 MINUTES
High school and adults5 MINUTES
SCALE B · SENTENCE 1We like good boys ____ girls.
SCALE B · SENTENCE 10 (LAST)To ____ friends is always ____ the ____ it takes.
Blanks shown as "____". Text from the 1919 Key's reproduction of each scale [1]. A few words in the scan are hard to read, and those sentences are not used here.

Fill the blank, then meet the key

Eight one-blank sentences from five of the scales, with Trabue's own lists of words that scored 2, 1 or 0 [1]. Trabue said the lists weren't exhaustive. If your word isn't on one, you play the 1919 scorer and judge it against the examples.

0 of 8 scored · 0 of 0 points
LANGUAGE SCALE B · SENTENCE 2Theis barking at the cat.
To earn more than zero, Trabue's key says, a completed sentence "must have reasonably good meaning and express a sentiment which might honestly be held by an intelligent person" [1]. Spelling didn't count.

From a 5-point scheme to 2-1-0

The preliminary sentences were marked 5 for perfect down to 0. The published scheme keeps only the top: 2 for perfect, 1 for slightly imperfect, 0 for everything else. Trabue checked what that cost. With 40 pupils in each grade, he correlated the sentences' order of difficulty in grade 6A with their order in grade 8B under each scheme [1].

Almost nothing was lost, even when scoring was cut to plain right and wrong. What mattered, he wrote, was that a scheme "shall be used consistently".

5-point scheme (preliminary)r = 0.965
2-1-0 scheme (published)r = 0.962
Right or wrong onlyr = 0.958
Bars run from r = 0.90 to 1.00 so the small differences are visible.

A key written in uniform

Marion Rex Trabue (1890–1972) published the scales in 1916 as a Teachers College contribution to education [3]. The separate Key followed because the first edition sold out while he was in the Army [1].

1916The scales publishedCompletion-Test Language Scales, Teachers College Contributions to Education No. 77.[3]
1917Kelley's individual versionTruman Kelley publishes on individual testing with completion exercises. His arrangement is reprinted in the Key.[4]
1917Chief examiner, Camp TaylorLieut. Marion R. Trabue leads the psychological staff at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, in the Army's first trial of group testing.[5]
Nov 1918Preface signed in WashingtonAs "Captain, A. G. D., U. S. A." he writes that a fuller account of the scales must wait for his "return to civil life and peaceful thoughts".[1]
1919The KeyPublished by Teachers College, where he is assistant professor of education: directions, scoring lists, standard scores and the difficulty of each sentence.[1]

References

  1. [1]Trabue, M. R. (1919). Key for Completion-Test Language Scales. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University. Full text, Internet Archive (Library of Congress copy).archive.org
  2. [2]Catalogue record for the same scan (73 pp.). Internet Archive.archive.org
  3. [3]Reference list citing Trabue, M. R. (1916), Completion-test language scales, Teachers College Contributions to Education No. 77. In "Measurement and Educational Psychology", Springer.link.springer.com
  4. [4]Bureau of Education Bulletin 1917, No. 48 (bibliography), listing Kelley, T. L. (1917), Individual testing with completion test exercises, Teachers College Record 18: 371–82. ERIC.files.eric.ed.gov
  5. [5]Yerkes, R. M. (Ed.). (1921). Psychological examining in the United States Army. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 15. Internet Archive.archive.org
HOW TO CITE THIS PAGE
What's Your IQ. (2026). Trabue Completion-Test Language Scales (1916–1919). In Historical IQ Tests Archive. Retrieved October 1, 2026, from /en/historical-iq-tests/trabue-language-scale-1922
EDITORIAL RECORD
First published2026
Last reviewed1 October 2026
Sources5: the 1919 Key read in full for scales B–M and the scoring scheme, plus bibliographic records and the 1921 Army report
CorrectionsReplaced the previous page's own sentences and "acceptable answer" lists with Trabue's published ones. Removed the "five scales" claim (there are nine), the 1922 date (the scales are 1916, the Key 1919), "one of the first standardized verbal-IQ measures", and a "Start the test" link to a missing page.
Open questionsWhat the Key's section "Sentences Alpha 7 and Beta 33" refers to; norms in the 1916 monograph, which we haven't read
Canonical URLwhats-your-iq.com/en/historical-iq-tests/trabue-language-scale-1922

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Part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content under CC BY-SA 4.0. The 1919 Key is free to read on the Internet Archive; the Library of Congress reports no known copyright restrictions.
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