Black Vocabulary Test

The Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity (BITCH-100) was created in 1972 by Robert L. Williams, Professor of Psychology and Director of Black Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Honolulu. The leading intelligence tests of the time, such as the Stanford-Binet, the WISC and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, had left Black children out of their standardization samples. Williams built a test from the Black experience alone, to show what happens when a test's content comes from one culture and is given to people from another.

The instrument evaluates Black Cultural Knowledge. As Williams (1972) described, the BITCH-100 is a culture-specific test, where the content of all items was drawn exclusively from the Black experience domain. Rather than attempting to create a culture-fair test, Williams deliberately constructed one centered on vocabulary, expressions, and shared cultural touchstones common to Black Americans around 1970. Scoring on this scale reflects how many of these historical words and phrases—spanning everyday idioms about people, money, clothing, and social life—you define as Black people used them at the time. Because language shifts across generations, these items represent a specific historical moment rather than contemporary speech.

Williams (1972) administered the original test to a sample of 100 Black and 100 White high-school students in St. Louis, aged 16 to 18, drawn equally from low- and middle-income backgrounds. The results revealed a striking 36-point gap between the groups, reversing the typical disparities seen on conventional IQ tests. The Black students scored an average of 87.07 out of 100, with all but one student scoring above 80. In contrast, the White students averaged 51.07, and only 8 scored 67 or better. White students clustered in the lower half of the combined distribution, while Black students occupied the upper half.

Williams drew the conclusion that a test normed on one group and used on another is unfair. On his culture-specific test the White students were penalized, he wrote, just as Black children were on tests such as the Stanford-Binet, the WISC and the Peabody. Williams did not claim that the BITCH-100 measures intelligence: asked how he knew it measured intelligence rather than something else, he answered that he did not know, and that only practical experience would tell.

A later study found the same pattern. Matarazzo and Wiens (1977) tested police applicants in Portland, Oregon, and found that no White applicant scored above any Black applicant on the BITCH, while the two groups' IQ scores overlapped widely and the BITCH was unrelated to IQ. This version has 68 of the 100 items: 33 word for word from printings of Williams's test booklet, which was sold by his own firm and never reprinted in full, and 35 from later collections of its items. Your score is the share you answered correctly. The curves on your chart are Williams's 1972 White students (average 51%) and Black students (average 87%), each drawn from its group's average and spread and carried from his 100 items to these 68; like his scores, they are skewed rather than bell-shaped. All 200 students together averaged 69%. Comparing your score with theirs assumes the missing items would have gone as these did.

This test is provided strictly for educational and historical purposes and is not a psychological evaluation, assessment of intelligence, or clinical diagnosis. Your score does not measure intellectual ability, predict modern abilities, or determine racial identity. This assessment is based on the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity (BITCH-100) developed by Robert L. Williams (1972), but it is an independent digital presentation and is not affiliated with Williams or Washington University. It serves as an educational window into psychological history and the dynamics of cultural familiarity in testing.

References

• Matarazzo, J. D. & Wiens, A. N. (1977). Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale scores of Black and White police applicants. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62(1), 57-63.
• Long, P. A. & Anthony, J. J. (1974). The measurement of mental retardation by a culture-specific test. Psychology in the Schools, 11(3), 310-312.
• Williams, R. L. (1972). The BITCH-100: A culture-specific test. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED070799).
• Stern, D. (1995). Teaching English so it matters: Creating curriculum for and with high school students. Corwin Press.

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