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{{Short description|American recruit intelligence assessment}}
The '''Army General Classification Test''' ('''AGCT''') is an assessment created by the [[United States Army]] to evaluate the intelligence and comprehension of military recruits.

[[World War I]] and [[World War II]] created the need for this type of testing and provided a large body of test subjects. The early emphasis (World War I) was on determining the level of [[literacy]] ([[Army Alpha#History|Alpha test]]) among a heterogeneous group. Illiterates were given [[Military psychology#Intelligence Testing in the United States Military|another]] test (Army Beta); some enrollees were interviewed. Subsequent testing targeted [[aptitude]] in order to better fill [[Role-based assessment|roles]], such as those provided by officers who obtained commissions from other than the [[United States military academies]], or to meet the need for increasingly complicated skills that came along with technological progress, especially after World War II.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Paul F. |last1=Ballantyne |date=2002 |chapter=From New Deal Training Programs to World War II Testing: Ideological maintenance, test standards, college entrance, and predictive validity (1933-1946) |chapter-url=http://www.cyberus.ca/~pballan/C5P1.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304084554/http://www.cyberus.ca/~pballan/C5P1.htm |archive-date=4 March 2016 |title=Psychology, Society, and Ability Testing (1859-2002): Transformative alternatives to Mental Darwinism and Interactionism }}{{self-published inline|date=February 2025}}</ref>

As with other measurement attempts, the AGCT ran into controversy during the era of the [[Vietnam War]].{{clarify|Explain why|date=July 2023}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=MacGregor |first1=Morris J. |title=The History of Integration of the Armed Forces: 1940-1965 |date=2001 |publisher=[[United States Army Center of Military History]] |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo88213/pdf/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo88213.pdf }}{{pn|date=February 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first1=Paul F. |last1=Ballantyne |date=2002 |chapter=Questioning The Ideology Of Testing: The modernist search for an appropriate mental yardstick (1964-1981) |chapter-url=http://www.cyberus.ca/~pballan/C7P1.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304084559/http://www.cyberus.ca/~pballan/C7P1.htm |archive-date=4 March 2016 |title=Psychology, Society, and Ability Testing (1859-2002): Transformative alternatives to Mental Darwinism and Interactionism }}{{self-published inline|date=February 2025}}</ref> Yet, the requirement did not abate, leading to improvements in the application and use of the standard testing methodology.

The modern variant of this test is the [[Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery]] (ASVAB) that was first administered in 1960.<ref>USMEPCOM [http://www.mepcom.army.mil/visitor-info.asp Your Future Begins Now, Testing] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070320234448/http://www.mepcom.army.mil/visitor-info.asp |date=March 20, 2007 }}</ref>

Many high [[High IQ society|IQ societies]], such as [[Mensa International|Mensa]] and [[Intertel]], can map their entrance requirements to early AGCT scores.<ref>American MENSA [http://www.am.us.mensa.org/Content/AML/NavigationMenu/Join/SubmitTestScores/QualifyingTestScores/QualifyingScores.htm Qualifying Test Scores] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819205555/http://www.am.us.mensa.org/Content/AML/NavigationMenu/Join/SubmitTestScores/QualifyingTestScores/QualifyingScores.htm |date=August 19, 2011 }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Intertel - Join us|url=https://www.intertel-iq.org/join-us|access-date=2021-03-15|website=www.intertel-iq.org}}</ref> The AGCT was of interest to researchers because of the breadth of the test taker sample (1.75 million men took the original test).

==The Army Alpha and Beta Intelligence Tests==
The first intelligence tests were created during World War I to screen the thousands of soldiers being recruited by the United States military.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Brief History of the SAT |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/history.html |publisher=Frontline |access-date=March 10, 2014 }}</ref>

[[Robert Yerkes]] and a committee of six representatives developed two intelligence tests; the [[Army Alpha]] test and the [[Army Beta]] test to help the United States military screen incoming soldiers for "intellectual deficiencies, psychopathic tendencies, nervous intangibility, and inadequate self-control".<ref name=Carson>{{cite journal |last=Carson |first=John |title=Alpha Army, Army Brass, and the Search for Army Intelligence |journal=Isis |date=June 1993 |volume=84 |issue=2 |pages=278–309 |doi=10.1086/356463 }}</ref> The Alpha test was a verbal test for literate recruits and was divided into eight test categories, which included: following oral directions, arithmetical problems, practical judgments, synonyms and antonyms, disarranged sentences, number series completion, analogies and information,<ref>{{cite web |first=S. J. |last=Gould |title=A nation of morons|url=http://www.holah.karoo.net/gouldstudy.htm |publisher=Mark Holah |access-date=March 10, 2014}}</ref> whereas the Beta test was a nonverbal test used for testing illiterate or non-English speaking recruits. The Beta test did not require those being tested to use written language, but rather the examinees completed tasks by using visual aids.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hilgard |first1=E. R. |title=Robert Mearns Yerkes, May 26, 1876--February 3, 1956 |journal=Biographical Memoirs. National Academy of Sciences |date=1965 |volume=38 |pages=385–425 |pmid=11615455 |url=https://www.nasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/yerkes-robert-m.pdf }}</ref> The Beta Intelligence test was divided into seven subtests, which included: "Test 1- assessed the ability of army recruits to trace the path of a maze; Test 2- assessed the ability of cube analysis; Test 3-assessed the ability of pattern analysis using an X-O series; Test 4- assessed the ability of coding digits with symbols; Test 5- assessed the ability of number checking; Test 6-assessed the ability of pictorial completion; and Test 7- assessed the ability of geometrical construction".{{cite quote|date=February 2025}}

Overall, the Army Alpha and the Army Beta tests were designed to find the mental age of military recruits and to assess incoming recruits for success in the US Military by testing one's ability to understand language, to perform reasoning with semantic and quantitative relationships, to make practical judgments, to infer rules and regulations, and to recall general information.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Pioneers in Standardized Testing |journal=Issues in Science and Technology |year=2002 |volume=19 |issue=9 |pages=1–5 |url=https://issues.org/archives-21/ }}</ref> The Army Alpha and the Army Beta tests have been criticized for being biased and for not predicting the actual success of incoming soldiers.<ref name=Carson/>

== Criticism ==

*''[[The Mismeasure of Man]]'' by [[Stephen Jay Gould]]

== g-loading ==

The g-loading of the AGCT has not been calculated, although the percentiles of the ASVAB of the 1980s strongly overlaps with the AGCT. The ASVAB test has a g performance strongly comparable to formal intelligence tests. 39 years later, where Flynn effects would have predicted a systematic inflation of nearly 12 points, what was found was a simple fluctuation of the sign of the difference between the tests throughout the range.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hartmann |first1=Peter |last2=Reuter |first2=Martin |title=Spearman's 'Law of Diminishing Returns' tested with two methods |journal=Intelligence |date=January 2006 |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=47–62 |doi=10.1016/j.intell.2005.06.002 }}</ref><ref>{{cite report |id={{DTIC|ADB113780}} |last1=Maier |first1=Milton H |last2=Sims |first2=William H |date=1986 |title=The ASVAB Score Scales: 1980 and World War II }}{{pn|date=February 2025}}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Further reading==

* {{citation |last=Tuddenham |first=Read D. |title=Soldier intelligence in World Wars I and II |journal=American Psychologist |volume=3 |number=2 |pages=54–56 |date=1948 |doi=10.1037/h0054962 |pmid=18911933 }}

[[Category:Entrance examinations]]
[[Category:Military education and training in the United States]]
[[Category:Intelligence tests]]

Army General Classification Test - Revision history

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