(a) _Boy_, _ball_, _river_. (b) _Work_, _money_, _men_. (c) _Desert_, _rivers_, _lakes_. Say: "_You know what a sentence is, of course. A sentence is made up of some words which say something. Now, I am going to give you three words, and you must make up a sentence that has all three words in it. The three words are 'boy,' 'ball,' 'river.' Go ahead and make up a sentence that has all three words in it._" The others are given in the same way. Note that the subject is not shown the three words written down, and that the reply is to be given orally. If the subject does not understand what is wanted, the instruction may be repeated, but it is not permissible to illustrate what a sentence is by giving one. There must be no preliminary practice. A curious misunderstanding which is sometimes encountered comes from assuming that the sentence must be constructed entirely of the three words given. If it appears that the subject is stumbling over this difficulty, we explain: "_The three words must be put with some other words so that all of them together will make a sentence._" Nothing is said about hurrying, but if a sentence is not given within one minute the rule is to count that part of the test a failure and to proceed to the next trio of words. Give only one trial for each part of the test. Do not specially caution the child to avoid giving more than one sentence, as this is implied in the formula used and should be understood. SCORING. The test is passed if _two of the three_ sentences are satisfactory. In order to be satisfactory a sentence must fulfill the following requirements: (1) It must either be a simple sentence, or, if compound, must not contain more than two distinct ideas; and (2) it must not express an absurdity. Slight changes in one or more of the key words are disregarded, as _river_ for _rivers_, etc. The scoring is difficult enough to justify rather extensive illustration. (a) _Boy, ball, river_ _Satisfactory._ An analysis of 128 satisfactory responses gave the following classification:-- (1) Simple sentence containing a simple subject and a simple predicate; as: "The boy threw his ball into the river." "The boy lost his ball in the river." "The boy's ball fell into the river." "The boy swam into the river after his ball," etc. This group contains 76 per cent of the correct responses. (2) A sentence with a simple subject and a compound predicate; as: "A boy went to the river and took his ball with him." About 8 per cent of all were of this type. (3) A complex sentence containing a relative clause (2 per cent only); as: "The boy ran after his ball which was rolling toward the river." (4) A compound sentence containing two independent clauses (about 14 per cent); as: "The boy had a ball and he lost it in the river." _Unsatisfactory._ The failures fall into four chief groups:--