The Sentence Completion Test (SSCT)
19S0
Sacks, J.M. & Levy, S.
Description: The Sacks Sentence Completion Test (SSCT) is a GO-item test
that asks respondents to complete 60 questions with the first thing that
comes to mind across four areas: Family, Sex, Interpersonal, Relationships
and Self concept.
Age Range : Adults
Administration: Individual
Test Category: Personality- Projective Technique
The sentence completion test has been used in two ways: a) as an independent source of
information, and b) as an instrument of comparison. To begin with the second acceptation, the link
which relates it to the Rorschach test is the element of "disturbance." These two projective tests,
according to Sacks and Levy, are two different ways of personality description which together give us
a more rounded picture of the personality.
The Rorschach test mirrors the subject's basic personality structure; the Sacks Sentence Completion
Test may reflect conscious, preconscious, or unconscious thinking and feeling. Though there are
variables in both tests which are mutually comparable, the objective measurements are few and
difficult to apply. But one thing seems to be clear: if a subject suffers from acute anxiety, this anxiety
will manifest itself in his attitudes towards fife. If the Rorschach test reveals anxiety, this anxiety will
he reflected in the various attitudes described in the SSCT. The SSCT Is designed, and we take it now
in its first acceptation, to obtain significant clinical material in four representative areas of
adjustment, viz., family, sex, interpersonal relationships and self-concept. The test consists of 60
incomplete sentences organized in lS attitudes. The investigator has introduced a few modifications
to make the test fit his special setting. Ten new items have been substituted for the original nine
items. "Attitude toward religion" and "Attitude toward siblings" have taken the place of "Attitude
towards superiors at work and school" and "Attitude toward people supervised". We hope that the
attitudes introduced present richer possibilities for investigation in this special setting. The item "If I
had sex relations" was cancelled, as it did not seem proper in the restricted group to which the test
was administered, and because it was thought it would elicit very few responses. In its place an item
was introduced, which, it was believed, was likely to elicit characteristic completions: "I think talking
with girls" (with members of the opposite sex, as the case may be).
Here are the original and the adapted lists of incomplete sentences:
1. I feel that my father seldom
2. lhern the odds are against me
3. I always wanted to
4. If I were in charge
5. To me the future looks
6. The men over me
ff. I know it is silly hut I am afraid of
8. I feel that a real friend
9. When I was a child
10. My Idea of a perfect woman
11. When I see a man and a woman together
12. Compared with most families, mine
13. At work, I get along best with
14. My mother
15. I would do anything to forget the time I
16. If my father would only
1ft. I believe that I have the ability to
18. I could be perfectly happy if
19. If people work for me
20. I look forward to
21. In school, my teachers
22. Most of my friends don't know that I am afraid of
23. I don't like people who
24. Before the war, I
25. I think most girls
26. My feeling about married life is
2ft. My family treats me like
28. Those I work with are
29. My mother and I
30. My greatest mistake was
31. I wish my father
32. My greatest weakness is
33. My secret ambition in life
34. The people who work for me
35. Someday I
36. When I see the boss coming
3ft. I wish I could lose the fear of
38. The people I like best
39. If I were young-again
40. I believe most women
41. If I had sex relations
42. Most families I know
43. I like working withl people who
44. I think that most mothers
45. When I was younger, I felt guilty about
46. I feel that my father is
4ft. When luck turns against me
48. In giving orders to others I
49. What I want most out of life
50. When I am older
51. People whom I consider my superiors
52. My fears sometimes force me to
53. When I'm not around, my friends
54. My most vivid childhood memory
55. What I like least about women
56. My sex life
5ff. When I m s a child, my family
58. People who work with me usually
59. I like my mother but
60. The worst thing I ever did
