92
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY
without much previous experience in typing does very
well in the substitution test, the indication is that she
has the necessary aptitude or potential ability to become
a good typist with practice. It is very desirable to engage
a candidate of this kind with the view of giving her the
opportunity to develop this potentiality for the sake of
her future usefulness. It is just as desirable to know when
this potentiality is lacking in a typist in order to avoid
engaging an applicant upon whom practice and experience
will, to a large extent, be wasted.
Another test which contributes to this end, particularly
in the case of typists using a dictating machine, is the
Trabue completion test or the language tests built on this
model. Tests of this kind require the subject to fill in
the blank spaces left by the omission of certain words
and phrases in a sentence, with those words and phrases
which will complete the meaning of that sentence. For
instance, in the sentence: When the alarm clock. . . .1
immediately.... out of bed, rings and jump obviously
make the necessary sense and complete the sentence. It
very frequently happens that a typist is confronted by a
copy or by a record in which a word or phrase is illegible
or unintelligible. In the face of such a situation some
typists are quite helpless and can solve the difficulty only
after much thought or after making inquiries from their
neighbors or superiors. Others are able, by their own sense
of the meaning of what has been said or written, both
before and after the blank, to supply the necessary words*
That is, their sense of context enables them to complete
sentences the parts of which are missing. The ability
to do this is a very great advantage to the typist, and
one which will greatly increase her capacity for good
work.
