Feature Profile Test

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What's in the photo above is the feature profile test. With it, you are instructed to make a face out of a few pieces of blocks. The thing about the FPT is that it is historical relic of a dark past about psychological testing. Back on the days when the concept of eugenics was popular around the world, US immigration used this test to screen out "feebleminded" people from entering the country. This was because of the belief that feebleminded people might mate with Americans and eventually make more feebleminded people than smart ones. Thus, they sent the people who did not pass the test back to their home country, some of them ended up dying during WWII. I remember my college professor talk about how the test didn't really work right. First, he taught, was that it was only able to measure a few specific intelligences and assumed that they were all there were. Second, the test was done by undertrained immigration officers who would give instructions in English. Imagine being given a set of blocks and someone telling you something in gibberish. And lastly, the core theory behind it, eugenics or the belief that people with poor genes must be culled, vastly underestimates the power of the environment. Many of those who have been barred from entry were war refugees who have been stressed, malnourished, and sleep deprived for long periods of time. Plus, there was also the issue of them being traumatized by the WWII.