The Booklet Category Test is often seen as a rather complex concept formation test that is not especially difficult for normal subjects but requires abstraction ability that is often diminished in subjects with cortical damage. According to Reitan and Davison, the purpose of the test is to determine the ability of the subject to profit from both negative and positive experience as a basis for altering his performance.

Scoring: Patients must attempt to abstract the organizing principle or concept involved in seven groups of stimuli presented on sheets of paper in a binder. The number of errors made by the subjects is recorded as a measure of the individual's ability to profit from experience. Difficulty exist in interpretation because it is unlikely that any two subjects would exhibit the same pattern of positive and negative feedback.

Reliability, Validity, and Norms: The manual relies primarily upon the body of research developed with the Booklet Category Test. The manual reports the correlations between the BCT and the Category Test to range from 0.91, for 30 normal students, to 0.76, for a heterogeneous group of 38 psychiatric patients. While promising, these data are less than sufficient in establishing the equivalence of the two tests. Although the relationship between the Category Test and the booklet version may be viewed as an estimate of its stability-equivalence, no formal reliability data are reported. The manual also lacks any standardization or normative date.