Summary.A cross‐sectional method was devised to investigate the differences in the judgments and reasoning of adolescent pupils when presented with connected passages calling for comprehension. Two passages were written to bring out certain features of the pupils' thinking such as tautological and irrelevant thinking, circumstantial judgments and finally, comprehensive judgments involving the imagination and evocation of possible explanations. Three large groups of pupils were tested, representing a wide range of intellectual capacity and achievement. The pupils' answers to the questions set on the passages were capable of analysis in terms of categories ranging from pre‐logical answers to fully comprehensive answers evoking imagined possibilities. Interesting formal changes were also demonstrated. In general, pupils up to the age of 13½ years judged circumstantially and only by 14+ years did they show a firm tendency to make comprehensive judgments involving the production of possible explanat