Even so, the team is hopeful that verbal tests might someday be used in place of invasive diagnostic procedures to identify certain illnesses.

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To put Lydia's mark in perspective, the top adult score in the Cattell III B test, which primarily tests verbal reasoning, is 161.

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At the age of six, however, these children scored lower on verbal and "visuospatial" tests than the unaffected children.

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People who were asked to reflect on their many past successes or a specific failure scored roughly 10% better on tests of mathematical ability, as well as verbal, spatial, and abstract reasoning, than those who reflected on either many past failures or a single specific success.

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Nor does he perform with exceptional aptitude on tests of skills that lie outside his area of expertise, such as verbal recall.

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