In the standardized form the sizes, shapes and positions are uniformly adopted and the technique of instruction and procedure is specified. Under these conditions the time required to complete the task by normal children of the ages five to fourteen years has been recorded. Sylvester presents a curve based on the examination of 1,537 normal children. The curve shows the average time of performance for each age and also indicates the range of performance for each age. In the case of a given individual it is thus easy, by referring to the standard table of norms, to determine whether he is up to the normal record for his age, whether he is within the normal range of variation for this age, and how deficient or precocious he may be in this respect. Tables of this type are now being accumulated for a great variety of single standard tests.
In addition to scales of this type, which proceed by setting for the individual a graded series of tasks and determining his success in their accomplishment, there is a further type of graded scale which is now represented by several standard specimens. This is the type of scale which is designed to afford an instrument for the measurement of such products as the actual work of the individual incidentally yields. Thorndike's "Scale for the Measurement of Handwriting" is the model on which many of the later scales of this type have been based. In this scale actual specimens of handwriting are arranged in a graduated series in such a way that the steps from specimen to specimen are equally appreciable or noticeable, and in this sense uniform. When such a scale extends from an actual zero point, it is possible to "measure" the quality of handwriting in quite the same way as that in which one measures the height of an individual or the length of a table. The quantitative measure consists in the statement of the number of stages which intervene between that quality of product represented by the specimen and the zero point of the scale. The position assigned to the specimen being measured is determined by moving the specimen along the graded series of standards until a point is reached where the specimen seems, on the basis of direct inspection, to belong. Such scales have been formulated for various special forms of school work, such as handwriting, drawing, arithmetic, literary composition, mechanical construction, etc. By such means it is possible not only to measure the "general intelligence" of the worker, but also his actual ability in creating a definite type of product. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities of scales of this form, and their value in determining the more definite and particular capacities, whether from the point of view of original endowment or from the point of view of the effects of training, is obvious.