The measurement of intelligence : $b an explanation of and a complete guide for the use of the Standard revision and extension of the Binet-Simon intelligence scaleTerman, Lewis M. (Lewis Madison)
Science
The measurement of intelligence : $b an explanation of and a complete guide for the use of the Standard revision and extension of the Binet-Simon intelligence scale
Let us change the picture. Z is a bright-eyed, dark-skinned girl
of 9 years. She is dark-skinned because her father is a mixture
of Indian and Spanish. The mother is of Irish descent. With her
strangely mated parents and two brothers she lives in a dirty,
cramped, and poorly furnished house in the country. The parents
are illiterate, and the brothers are retarded and dull, though
not feeble-minded.
It is Z's turn to be tested. I inquire the name. It is familiar,
for I have already tested the two stupid brothers. I also know
her ignorant parents and the miserable cabin in which she lives.
The examination begins with the 8-year tests. The responses are
quick and accurate. We proceed to the 9-year group. There is no
failure, and there is but one minor error. Successes and
failures alternate for a while until the latter prevail. Z has
tested at 11 years. In spite of her wretched home, she is
mentally advanced nearly 25 per cent. By the vocabulary test she
is credited with a knowledge of nearly 6000 words, or nearly
four times as many as X, the boy of cultured home and scholarly
parents, had learned by the age of 8 years.
Five years have passed. When given the test, Z was in the fourth
grade and, as we have already stated, 9 years of age. As a
result of the test she was transferred to the fifth grade. Later
she skipped again and at the age of 14 is a successful student
in the second year of high school. To assay her intelligence and
determine its quality was a task of forty-five minutes.
The above cases, each of which could be paralleled by many others which
we have found, will serve to illustrate the fact that exceptionally
superior endowment is discoverable by the tests, however unfavorable the
home from which it comes, and that inferior endowment cannot be
normalized by all the advantages of the most cultured home. Quoting
again from Stern, "The tests actually reach and discover the general
developmental conditions of intelligence, and not mere fragments of
knowledge and attainments acquired by chance."
PART II
GUIDE FOR THE USE OF THE STANFORD REVISION AND EXTENSION
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
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