College Success: A Cognitive Analysis

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Furthermore, the American College Test can be used to measure cognitive skills in terms of college success. In 1904, Charles Spearman observed that people who achieved well on one mental task will frequently achieve well on numerous others, and thus, humans have only one general ability. For example, individuals who are skilled at identifying patterns will also have bigger vocabularies, superb reading comprehension, and exceptional at arithmetic skills (Dickens 1). Later in 1935, Louis Leon Thurstone challenged Spearman’s hypothesis. Thurstone claimed humans have numerous independent mental (cognitive) skills. Today, the most common view of cognitive skills is a combination of both hypotheses. Cognitive skills are several dimensions that are