This study represents an attempt to explain verbal comprehension by analyzing the multifaceted structure of the item of a sentence-completion test. Three stimulus constituents were postulated: technical, logical-semantic, and associative-contextual. Responses of 2,853 Israeli sixth graders to a sentence completion test provided the raw data for the investigation. Guttman's facet and order theories and Smallest space analysis were used to define and to test the radex and the cylindrex configurations of the item-stimulated processing procedures and skill components. The hypotheses, confirmed empirically, suggest that: (a) Item tasks are multi procedural, multi componential stimuli composites that explain cognitive and technical constituents of task responses. (b) Comprehension-successful performances, schematically portrayed by the radex and the cylindrex configurations, uniformly involve the application of analytic, associative, technical and higher level executive processing procedures and skill components. (c) Deviations from these uniformly applied procedures and skills may explain individual differences in comprehension.
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