Table 1. Description of Project Talent Cognitive Aptitudes and Abilitiesa.
| Measure (No. of Items) | Description |
|---|---|
| General cognitive ability | |
| IQ composite (79) | Measures IQ through measures of reading comprehension, reasoning, and mathematics |
| General academic aptitude (329) | Measures general academic aptitude through measures of mathematics, English, vocabulary, and reasoning |
| Language aptitude and abilities | |
| Memory for sentences (16) | Measures a particular kind of memory—the ability to memorize simple descriptive statements and to recall a missing word when the rest of the sentence is provided sometime later |
| Memory for words (24 items) | Measures a type of rote memory—the ability to memorize foreign words corresponding to common English words |
| Disguised words (30) | Measures the ability to form connections between letters and sounds |
| Word function in sentences (24) | Measures the student’s sensitivity to grammatical structure; the fact that the terminology of grammar is not used at all in the test helps reduce the effects of formal training to a minimum; to score well, one must understand sentence structure and be able to recognize the function of each word or phrase in the sentence |
| Reading comprehension (48) | Measures the ability to comprehend written materials; the test includes passages on a wide range of topics; the student reads each passage and then answers a number of questions about it, referring back to the passage at will |
| Complex intellectual aptitude | |
| Creativity (20) | Measures the ability to find ingenious solutions to a variety of practical problems; items on this test require the student to generate tentative solutions and match them to multiple-choice alternatives indicated by a single letter of the solution word |
| Mechanical reasoning (20) | Measures the ability to deduce the effects of the operation of everyday physical forces (eg, gravity) and basic kinds of mechanisms (eg, gears, pulleys, wheels, springs, and levers) |
| Abstract reasoning (15) | A nonverbal test designed to measure the ability to determine a logical relationship or progression among the elements of a complex pattern and to apply this relationship to identify an element that belongs in a specified position in a pattern |
| Visualization | |
| Visualization in 2 dimensions (24) | Measures the ability to visualize how diagrams would look after being turned around on a flat surface, in contrast to the way they would look after being turned over |
| Visualization in 3 dimensions (16) | Measures the ability to visualize how a 2-dimensional figure would look after it had been folded to make a 3-dimensional figure |
| Mathematics | |
| Arithmetic reasoning (16) | Measures the ability to reason in the manner required to solve arithmetic problems; computation, except at the very simplest level, is excluded from the test |
| Introductory high school math (24) | Measures achievement in all kinds of mathematics generally taught up to and including ninth grade, with the exception of the areas covered in the Arithmetic Computation Test Arithmetic Reasoning Test; the primary emphasis of this test is on elementary algebra, and other topics include fractions, decimals, percentages, square roots, intuitive geometry, and elementary measurement formulas |
| Advanced high school math (14) | Measures understanding and application of basic concepts and methods rather than rote memory; the topics covered are plane geometry, solid geometry, algebra, trigonometry, elements of analytic geometry, and introductory calculus |
| Clerical and perceptual aptitudes | |
| Arithmetic computation (72) | Measures speed and accuracy of computation; the test is limited to the 4 basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) and to whole numbers |
| Table reading (72) | Measures speed and accuracy in a noncomputational clerical task, involving obtaining information from tables |
| Clerical checking (74) | Measures speed and accuracy of perception in a simple clerical task; the test involves comparing pairs of names to determine whether they are identical |
| Object inspection (40) | Measures speed and accuracy in perception of form; measures the ability to spot differences in small objects quickly and accurately when comparing them visually |
a
Detailed descriptions of each measure can be found in The Project Talent Data Bank Handbook.18