High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Army Alpha is a group-administered test developed by Robert Yerkes and six other committee members to evaluate vast numbers a military recruits in the United States during WWI. It was first introduced in 1917 due to a demand for a systematic method of evaluating the intellectual and emotional functioning of soldiers. The test measured "verbal ability, numerical ability, ability to follow directions, and knowledge of information". Scores on the Army Alpha were used to determine a soldier`s capability of serving, his job classification and if he was a candidate for a leadership position. Soldiers who were illiterate or foreign speaking would take the Army Beta, a nonverbal equivalent of the exam.