- “The apple tree makes a cool, pleasant shade on the ground where the children are playing.”
- “It is nearly half-past one o’clock; the house is very quiet and the cat has gone to sleep.”
- “In summer the days are very warm and fine; in winter it snows and I am cold.”
Procedure and scoring exactly as in [VI, 6].
Remarks. It is interesting to note that five years of mental growth are required to pass from the ability to [repeat sixteen or eighteen syllables] (year VI) to the ability to repeat twenty or twenty-two syllables. Similarly in memory for digits. [Five] digits are almost as easy at year VII as [six] at year X. Two explanations are available: (1) The increased difficulty may be accounted for by a relatively slow growth of memory power after the age of 6 or 7 years; or (2) the increase in difficulty may be real, expressing an inner law as to the behavior of the memory span in dealing with material of increasing length. Both factors are probably involved.
This is another of the Stanford additions to the scale. Average children of 10 years ordinarily pass it, but older, retarded children of 10-year mental age make a poorer showing. In the case of mentally retarded adults, especially, the verbal memory is less exact than that of school children of the same mental age.
X, Alternative test 3: construction puzzle A (Healy and Fernald)
Material. Use the form-board pictured on page [279]. This may be purchased of C. H. Stoelting & Co., Chicago, Illinois. A home-made one will do as well if care is taken to get the dimensions exact. Quarter-inch wood should be used. The inside of the frame should be 3 × 4 inches, and the dimensions of the blocks should be as follows: 13⁄16 × 3; 1 × 1½; 1 × 2¾; 1 × 1½; 1¼ × 2.
Procedure. Place the frame on the table before the subject, the short side nearest him. The blocks are placed in an irregular position on the side of the frame away from the subject. Take care that the board with the blocks in place is not exposed to view in advance of the experiment.
Say: “I want you to put these blocks in this frame so that all the space will be filled up. If you do it rightly they will all fit in and there will be no space left over. Go ahead.”
Do not tell the subject to see how quickly he can do it. Say nothing that would even suggest hurrying, for this tends to call forth the trial-and-error procedure even with intelligent subjects.