Summer 2009
Postcard / The Biscuit-Packers’ Test
That’s the way the cookie doesn’t crumble
![The front of this issue’s postcard featuring a photograph of the so-called biscuit-packers’ test.](/issues/34/cabinet_034_postcard_1.jpg)
![The back of this issue’s postcard bearing text that reads: The “biscuit-packers’ test” was developed at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, N.I.I.P., in London around nineteen thirty, one of a large number of vocational tests designed by N.I.I.P., whose founders, including the psychologist Charles Myers, believed that people would be more productive and satisfied with their work if matched with trades that suited their natural aptitudes. The biscuit-packers’ test, an assay of dexterity and spatial-organization skills, evaluated the facility with which a candidate wrapped corrugated paper around “biscuits” represented by the wooden shapes fixed to the base of the box.](/issues/34/cabinet_034_postcard_2.jpg)
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