NOVEL MENTAL TESTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2064, 6 December 1919, Page 4

NOVEL MENTAL TESTS.

The Columbia Eniver'-ily. of Now York City, has adopted a new entrance examination devised by Professor Thorndyke, formerly in charge of the psychological and mental tests in the United States army, and recently three huge lecture halls of the university were tilled with students taking the tests in preference to other examinations. The now test, which, it is said, has already been adopted in fifteen other universities there, is calculated to determine whether a student’s mind is of the proper calibre to withstand the strain of the study course he expects to undertake. As an example of the psychological test designed to weigh a man’s soul and gauge his mental capa'eity, question No. 7 asks why ought every man to he educated. He must indicate which of the following answers are the.best: (1) Because Colonel Roosevelt was educated. (2) Because it makes a man more useful. (3) Because it costs money. (4) Because some educated people are wise. There are thirty such tests in the examination. No. If requires that the letter “F” should be written before each of the following statements which could not possibly he true: (I) “The dog ’pursued the slag through the llower gardens in full bloom.” (2) “M bile sharpening his three-hladed knite, my cousin cut his middle linger," (3) “The red-haired girl in the corner is taller than any ot her brothers.” After puzzling over many such questions and pondering long upon any possible impediment to a dog chasing a stag through a blooming, flower garden, many of the students, according lo the examiners, emphatically wished that they had undertaken .the old-fashioned examinations.