Forced-choice items, investigating the performance of 80 undergraduates on verbal classification and verbal analogy, were sequentially presented, allowing independent estimates of the accuracy of four principle component processes: inference, application, recognition, and distraction. Within-task performance showed substantial individual variation and the cross-task correlation was highly significant. Individual differences in forced-choice analogy performance were a function of accuracy of inference and application processes and recognition during option processing. Individual differences in classification performance were accounted for by inference accuracy and both recognition and distraction during option processing. Analogy appears to demand an application process which is important for successful solution of an item but which is not required in classification. While the two tasks share common processes there appear to be differences in the relative importance of these processes in discriminating among skilled and less-skilled individuals. In particular, the alternative choices appear to be much more important in classification since they frequently serve to remove ambiguity about the specifics of the rule. The components of option processing and the skill differences in inference that discriminate among adults are contrasted with inference accuracy and the likelihood of distraction components that discriminate among children. (Author/PN)