During the war the nature of the army's intelligence tests was a military secret. Anyone caught revealing their contents faced a $10,000 fine, a two-year prison term, or both. However; the March 1919 issue of The American Magazine carried what it called a specimen set of the Army Alpha under the heading "Try These Tests on Yourself and Others":

With your pencil make a dot over any one of these letters FGHIJ, and a comma after the longest of these three words: boy mother girl. Then, if Christmas comes in March, make a cross right here . . . but if not, pass along to the next question, and tell where the sun rises; .... If you believe that Edison discovered America, cross out what you just wrote, but if it was some one else, put in a number to complete this sentence: "a Horse has . . . feet...