This article investigates the mutidimensional structure of verbal comprehension test items. Empirical evidence, based upon results of a verbal comprehension test (a subtest of the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test) administered to Israeli sixth graders, is provided to support the theory that item tasks are multivariate-multiordered composites of three faceted components: language, contextual knowledge and cognitive operation. Guttman's "Order" and "Facet" theory, as well as his Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) were used with the data. The SSA yielded a "cylindrical" structure suggesting that (a) language and cognitive-operation components represent additive "key" skills that maintain the cognitive knowledge processing skills, and (b) that a differentiation can be made between skills that are automatically applied and those that are applied through processing operations. Linear and circular properties of the cylindrical manifestation were demonstrated by the serially ordered character of the sub-matrices of the matrix of interitem correlation coefficients.
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