DDT, one of the great scientific achievements of World War II is: 1) The jet-propulsion engine. 2) The robot submarine. 3) A better explosive than TNT. 4) An insecticide that promises to conquer mosquitoes, bedbugs, roaches, flies. 5) A wonder drug twice as effective as penicillin.

If this were a normal year and the U.S. and TIME weren't both saving paper, this week's issue might end--not with Books--but with TIME's thrice yearly Current Affairs Test.

As things are, we just don't have the paper to print the test in TIME'S more-than -a -million, copies. But we are still distributing the questions in pamphlet form to hundreds of schools and colleges, clubs and discussion groups where TIME is the basis for the study of current affairs --and we are saving a few copies for TIME subscribers who want to measure their knowledge of the news.

To get your copy, with two sets of answer-blanks and a sheet giving the right answers, just drop a note to TIME (Current Affairs Test), 330 East 22nd Street, Chicago 16.

This September 1944 test marks the twenty-fifth time subscribers have had a chance to score themselves--and their families and friends--on how well-informed they are. And, for the twenty-fifth time, the test has been written by its originators, two university professors who rate high with educators because of the examinations they've prepared for the American Council on Education (one of these testmakers is now Vice President of Stanford University).

Of course, one big reason why TIME has been so interested in sponsoring these Current Affairs Tests is that TIME's whole purpose is to keep busy men and women well-informed briefly, clearly, comprehensively--and the Current Affairs Test is just one more way of checking how well TIME is doing its job for you.

The first clear evidence we got on this point was gathered about nine years ago, when an industrial engineering firm surveyed 4,250 homes to discover how well-informed Americans were--found that men who read TIME were 46.3% better informed than men in the same neighborhoods who depended on other sources of news, that women who read TIME were 50.6% better informed than the women next door who didn't read it (and 13.6% better informed than TIMEless men, for that matter).

This summer another research firm asked a national cross-section of Americans six questions about the news--for example, "Which of these statements comes closest to what you think the Little Steel Formula means?" and "From this list of names, identify the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the President of the C.I.O." When the investigators put these same questions to a test group of TIME subscribers in seven cities, they found these TIME readers 89% better informed about these subjects than the average high school graduate, 17% better informed than the average college graduate.

And the scores on previous Current Affairs Tests seem to confirm these findings: Out of the 105 questions in every test, college students score an average of 58 right answers--while TIME readers score an average of 84.

Cordially,

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