The study focuses on the possibility that the tendency of academic underachievers to respond in terms of all inclusive language is indicative of their incapacity to discriminate the uniquely meaningful aspects of their environment. The authors hypothesize that academic achievers would differ significantly from academic underachievers in their capacity to discriminate between verbal stimuli of differing levels of meaningfulness. Also predicted was that such a difference would depend on how the verbal differentiations were arranged and which semantic dimensions were used to measure the discrimination. Subjects consisted of 50 college students divided into two groups matched on sex, class year, and predicted grade point average. The two groups differed significantly in current grade point averages. The subjects were exposed to high and low stimulus words in various treatment conditions so that 27 scores were obtained from each subject. When presented with verbal stimuli of differing levels of meaningfulness, academic achievers discriminated much more finely than did the academic underachievers. The hypothesized tendency was established and implications discussed. Also mentioned were treatment problems. [Not available in hard copy due to marginal legibility of original document.] (Author/MC)