STENOGRAPHERS, TYPISTS, AND COMPTOMETRISTS 89 
orie hundred and forty comptometrists, and finally, to more 
than one hundred and twenty candidates for comptometry. 
^hat is, more than one thousand people were tested and 
ftote than five thousand tests were given. The tests 
selected on the basis of these experiments are those which 
showed the highest and most consistent agreement with 
the abilities of those examined. By no means compre 
hensive or final, they have nevertheless proved them- 
Se Jves practical guides in the selection and grading of ap 
plicants for the kinds of office-machine work mentioned. 
tost of these tests are given in the Appendix, with direc- 
t'ons for use, under the names of the work to which they 
apply. 
typists and dictating-machine operators 
Obviously, the most important test which can be given 
to a typist is a test in the actual work of typing a given 
copy or f orm< Several tests were selected or devised for 
. s purpose and tried out on a number of typists with a 
g lew of discovering which tests were most significant. 
°rne very important points were revealed by these pre- 
"ninary trials. In the first place, it soon became appar- 
etlt that the tests must be given on a machine of the type 
to w hich the applicant had become accustomed or on 
hich she had been trained. A slight difference in ma- 
^ 'nes was frequently enough to throw a typist out of 
er stride and cause her to make an unusual number of 
typographical errors, errors which were obviously due to 
^familiarity with the machine. The solution of this 
Acuity was to allow each applicant to take the typing 
test on the machine of her choice. However, where this 
^ as ^practicable, a standard machine was chosen, and 
e a pplicant given sufficient time to adjust it to her use.