A study was undertaken to determine the feasibility of research on individual variation in translation performance. Three translations produced by 20 students in their second year of an advanced English translation program at the Dutch State School of Translation, were analyzed for variability in the translation of Dutch modal verbs. It was proposed that the student's ability to resolve the difficulties of translating those forms would be a good predictor of his or her overall performance. It was found that while students do vary in their ability to produce acceptable translations, there are also many other factors that may interfere with analysis, such as differences in context, frequency of modal occurrence in texts, and the presence of other translation problems. Further research on the quantification of variability is recommended, and a heuristic rather than prescriptive approach to translation instruction is also proposed. (MSE)