It may seem to the reader almost incredible that so small a sampling of words would give a reliable index of an individual's vocabulary. That it does so is due to the operation of the ordinary laws of chance. It is analogous to predicting the results of an election when only a small proportion of the ballots have been counted. It is known that a ballot box contains 600 votes, and if when only 30 have been counted it is found that they are divided between two candidates in the proportion of 20 and 10, it is safe to predict that a complete count will give the two candidates approximately 400 and 200 respectively.[61] In 1914 about 1,000,000 votes were cast for governor in California, and when only 10,000 votes had been counted, or a hundredth of all, it was announced and conceded that Governor Johnson had been reëlected by the 150,000 plurality. The completed count gave him 188,505 plurality. The error was less than 4 per cent of the total vote. [61] Supposing the ballots to have been shuffled. The vocabulary test has a far higher value than any other single test of the scale. Used with children of English-speaking parents (with children whose home language is not English it is of course unreliable), it probably has a higher value than any three other tests in the scale. Our statistics show that in a large majority of cases the vocabulary test alone will give us an intelligence quotient within 10 per cent of that secured by the entire scale. Out of hundreds of English-speaking children we have not found one testing significantly above age who had a significantly low vocabulary; and correspondingly, those who test much below age never have a high vocabulary. Occasionally, however, a subject tests somewhat higher or lower in vocabulary than the mental age would lead us to expect. This is often the case with dull children in cultured homes and with very intelligent children whose home environment has not stimulated language development. But even in these cases we are not seriously misled, for the dull child of fortunate home surroundings shows his dullness in the quality of his definitions if not in their quantity; while the bright child of illiterate parents shows his intelligence in the aptness and accuracy of his definitions. We have not worked out a satisfactory method of scoring the quality of definitions in our vocabulary test, but these differences will be readily observed by the trained examiner. Definitions in terms of use and definitions which are slightly inaccurate or hazy are quite characteristic of the lower mental ages. Children of the lower mental age have also a tendency to venture wild guesses at words they do not know. This is especially characteristic of retarded subjects and is another example of their weakness of auto-criticism. One feeble-minded boy of 12 years, with a mental age of 8 years, glibly and confidently gave definitions for every one of the hundred words. About 70 of the definitions were pure nonsense.