A common error in children's attempts to solve verbal analogies is to respond with a word strongly associated with the third term in the analogy. This is known as associative response. A study was conducted to investigate the cognitive processes underlying this response. Subjects, 112 fifth grade students, were administered a battery of tests designed to assess different components of analogical reasoning. The Children's Associative Responding Test (CART), a verbal analogies test that yields associative and nonassociative error scores, was also administered. Factor analysis of the results yielded four primary factors: vocabulary, encoding and retrieval processes, discovery of semantic relations and flexibility, and response evaluation. A higher order general factor was also found. Further regression analyses showed that only the mapping relations component did not significantly predict CART scores. Despite considerable criterion overlap, vocabulary and discovery of semantic relations were more highly related to nonassociative errors, and working memory and semantic flexibility were more highly related to associative errors. (Author/FL)