The article presents findings of a comparative study of thinking processes in secondary school students of the 1920s and modern adolescents aged 11-16, obtained from a verbal analogy test. The study was based on a technique by N. Vorontsova-Shirokova which was used both in conducting the verbal test and in processing the data. The study discovered specificity of solving verbal analogy problems in the above mentioned categories of students, as well as characteristics typical of modern day adolescents: greater success in solving abstract analogy problems, more dynamic mastering of concrete analogies, use of colloquial and vulgar expressions alongside scientific terms and modern words, more successful establishment of logical links by girls rather than boys aged 11-14 and other characteristics.