Adventures of a Test Taker

When Miss Zola refused to expatiate on the sex life of her parents, among other things, the doctors found that exceedingly odd and ordered her forthwith discharged

Do you like Alice in Wonderland? Do you believe in the second coming of Christ? These questions and hundreds like them, familiar to any freshman student who has worked with “personality tests,” are being asked of prospective employees by certain federal agencies in Washington. Although the use of such tests is not yet as widespread in government as in private industry, it appears to be on the increase. It therefore behooves anyone who would enter our federal service to develop a psyche as normal, unrepressed, and cooperative as though it had sprung, full-blooming, from the forehead of Freud. The following is an account of the losing battle fought by one hopeful job applicant with an agency employing psychological techniques in filling its positions.

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Joan Zola

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When Miss Zola refused to expatiate on the sex life of her parents, among other things, the doctors found that exceedingly odd and ordered her forthwith discharged

Do you like Alice in Wonderland? Do you believe in the second coming of Christ? These questions and hundreds like them, familiar to any freshman student who has worked with “personality tests,” are being asked of prospective employees by certain federal agencies in Washington. Although the use of such tests is not yet as widespread in government as in private industry, it appears to be on the increase. It therefore behooves anyone who would enter our federal service to develop a psyche as normal, unrepressed, and cooperative as though it had sprung, full-blooming, from the forehead of Freud. The following is an account of the losing battle fought by one hopeful job applicant with an agency employing psychological techniques in filling its positions.