B. Closely related to this method of miniature performance is that of taking an actual piece of the work to be performed and sampling the candidate's ability by his success in this trial. Thus, in connection with the recommendation of clerks and assistants from among the boys in commercial high schools it is common to test their ability from time to time throughout their course by assigning them small pieces of work similar to that which they might later be required to perform in business offices and shops. Finding addresses and numbers in a telephone directory, carrying out involved verbal instructions and directions from memory, computing calculations, recommending action on the basis of their figures, making out a trial balance, a trial chemical analysis, etc., are common forms of this type of test. In certain cases such specimens of work have been devised in or taken into the psychological laboratory and the worker watched more closely and measured more exactly. This has been done, for instance, by Thorndike in the case of clerical workers and salesmen, by Paynter in the case of judges of trade-mark infringements, by Scott in the case of salesmen, and by others in the case of tests for handwriting experts.
C. A third method has been that of analogy. Some test is devised which bears real or supposed resemblance to the sort of situation met by the worker in the given occupational activity. The material is new, but the attitude and endeavor of the worker seem to be much the same. There is indeed usually a tacit or expressed belief that the same simple or complex mental processes or psychological functions are involved in the two cases, although the precise nature of this function has seldom been clearly stated. Thus girls employed in sorting steel ball-bearings, and also typesetters, have been selected on the basis of their speed of reaction to a sound stimulus. Münsterberg has suggested that marine officers who can quickly perceive a situation and choose an appropriate mode of reaction to it may be selected by letting candidates sort into their appropriate piles a deck of cards bearing different combinations of letters. The same investigator has described a test for motormen which, while being neither a miniature of their required work nor yet a sample of it, is said to produce in them much the same mental attitude. In another case telephone operators were tested for speed in canceling certain letters from a newspaper page, in the belief that this work involved an ability that was also required at the switchboard, although there directed to different material. McComas has described a dot-striking test for measuring accuracy of aim or motor coördination, which forms an essential factor in manipulating a switchboard.