The assessment instruments you have to recognize by name.
MMPI, WAIS, Stanford-Binet, Strong, MBTI, Beck and the rest. What each measures and how it is categorized.
By Dr. Andrew Wichterman · September 15, 2026 · 5 min read · Updated October 4, 2026
The assessment area asks you to identify what a named instrument measures and what kind of test it is. You do not need to have administered any of them. You need a one-line description of each.
Intelligence and ability
- Stanford-Binet: Terman's revision of Binet-Simon; introduced the IQ concept and the ratio IQ; now uses deviation IQ.
- Wechsler scales: WAIS (adults), WISC (children 6 to 16), WPPSI (preschool). Deviation IQ, mean 100, SD 15. Index scores rather than a single verbal-performance split in current editions.
- Kaufman (KABC), Woodcock-Johnson: alternative cognitive batteries.
- Raven's Progressive Matrices: nonverbal, relatively culture-reduced.
- Army Alpha and Beta: World War I group tests; Beta was for non-readers.
- Aptitude tests predict future performance (SAT, GRE, GATB, DAT). Achievement tests measure what has been learned (WRAT, Iowa, Stanford Achievement).
Personality
- MMPI-2 / MMPI-3: objective, empirically keyed, clinical scales plus validity scales (L, F, K). The most widely used clinical personality inventory.
- MBTI: Jungian types on four dichotomies; popular, not a clinical instrument, weak on reliability.
- 16PF (Cattell), NEO-PI (Costa and McCrae, the Big Five), CPI, Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (Murray's needs), Millon (MCMI) for personality disorders.
- Projective: Rorschach (inkblots; Exner scoring), TAT (Murray; pictures), Draw-a-Person and House-Tree-Person, sentence completion, Bender-Gestalt (visual-motor; screening for neurological impairment). Projectives are less reliable and more inferential.
Interest and career
- Strong Interest Inventory: organized around Holland's RIASEC; the oldest interest inventory.
- Self-Directed Search: Holland's own self-scored instrument.
- Kuder, Campbell Interest and Skill Survey, O*NET Interest Profiler.
- Values: Super's Work Values Inventory, Rokeach Value Survey.
Symptom and clinical
- Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation.
- PHQ-9 (depression), GAD-7 (anxiety), PCL-5 (PTSD), C-SSRS (suicide risk).
- Substance: CAGE, AUDIT, MAST, DAST, SASSI.
- Mini-Mental State Examination: cognitive screening.
- Vineland: adaptive behavior, used in intellectual disability and autism assessment.
The categories the exam uses
Objective versus projective. Norm-referenced (compared to a group) versus criterion-referenced (compared to a standard). Speed versus power tests. Individual versus group administration. Maximum performance versus typical performance. Ipsative (forced choice, compared within the person) versus normative scoring. Standardized versus nonstandardized. Level A, B and C instruments by required training. Know the Mental Measurements Yearbook (Buros) as the place to look up reviews.
The four facts the exam asks per instrument
For any named test, items ask one of four things: what it measures, who it is for, what kind of test it is, and what metric it reports. The WAIS measures adult intelligence, ages sixteen and up, an individually administered test of maximum performance, reporting a deviation IQ with a mean of 100 and SD of 15 plus index scores. The MMPI measures psychopathology and personality in adults, an objective, empirically keyed, norm-referenced inventory, reporting T-scores with 65 and above clinically significant. The Strong measures vocational interests, an inventory of typical performance organized by Holland's six themes.
Write those four facts for every instrument in the lists above and you have the cards. The metric is the fact most often skipped and most often tested: a T-score on the MMPI, a deviation IQ on the Wechsler scales, a percentile or stanine on an achievement battery, a theme code on the Strong and the SDS, a raw score with cutoffs on the Beck inventories and the PHQ-9. An item that gives you a score and asks what it means is really asking whether you know which metric that instrument uses.
Instrument neighbors
The Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler scales both measure intelligence; the Stanford-Binet is the older, introduced the IQ, and historically used a ratio IQ, mental age over chronological age times one hundred; the Wechsler scales introduced the deviation IQ and the separate verbal and performance measures that became today's index scores. The MMPI and the MCMI both assess psychopathology; the MMPI is broad and empirically keyed, the Millon is built around personality disorders and Millon's own theory. The NEO measures normal personality on the Big Five and is not a clinical instrument.
The Strong and the Self-Directed Search both use Holland's codes; the Strong is professionally scored and compares you to people in occupations, the SDS is self-scored and self-interpreted. The BDI and the PHQ-9 both screen for depression; the BDI is a copyrighted twenty-one-item inventory, the PHQ-9 is a free nine-item screen built on the DSM criteria. The Rorschach and the TAT are both projective; inkblots with Exner's scoring system versus pictures with stories. The Vineland measures adaptive behavior, which the WISC does not, and a diagnosis of intellectual developmental disorder requires both. Learn the pairs and the single-instrument items take care of themselves.
The ethics of test use
Section E of the ACA Code governs assessment, and its items are as common as the instrument items. Counselors use only instruments they are trained and qualified to administer and interpret; publishers classify tests by qualification level, with level C instruments such as the Wechsler scales requiring graduate training in assessment. Clients give informed consent for testing, including its purpose and how results will be used, and receive results in language they can understand. Test data are released only to professionals qualified to interpret them, with the client's consent.
Counselors select instruments whose norms fit the client and interpret results in light of culture, language and disability; an instrument normed on a population unlike the client is interpreted with caution or not used. Obsolete tests and outdated data are not used. Computer-generated interpretations do not transfer responsibility; the counselor who signs the report owns it. Test security is maintained, and coaching clients on items is prohibited. The Responsibilities of Users of Standardized Tests, from the Association for Assessment and Research in Counseling, is the document the exam cites alongside the Code. When an item describes a counselor administering a test they learned about in a weekend workshop, the answer involves competence.
Practice this. The flashcards and practice tests on this site are sorted by content area, so you can drill this one until it holds.
One line per instrument, plus the category words. That is all the exam wants, and it wants it for about twenty instruments.