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Based upon a large body of factual information, a critical view of the cognitive skills and potentials of young people in the United States in the 1980s. The data is analyzed using the most current statistical techniques and discussed from a broad psychological, sociological and educational perspective. The respondents to the survey were obtained by direct visits to households, not through convenient institutional sources, therefore allowing for a representative national sample. As such, the study typifies a complete cross-section of America's youth both in and out of school. The young people included in the sample were administered the ASVAB, a test battery which consists of ten separately timed and scored tests which assess a wide range of knowledge and skills from English-language reading and vocabulary, through secondary school mathematics understanding and quantitative competance, to quite specific vocational knowledge in technical fields. Differences in the profiles across the ten tests provide some of the more interesting results of the analysis.
Kerckhoff et al. (1988) studied this question.