Specifications for aggregates require sampling portions of the material for testing. Other factors being equal, larger samples will tend to be more representative of the total supply. This practice provides procedures for reducing the large sample obtained in the field or produced in the laboratory to a convenient size for conducting a number of tests to describe the material and measure its quality in a manner that the smaller test sample portion is most likely to be a representation of the larger sample, and thus of the total supply. Failure to carefully follow the procedures in this practice could result in providing a nonrepresentative sample to be used in subsequent testing. The individual test methods provide for minimum amount of material to be tested.

Under certain circumstances, reduction in size of the large sample prior to testing is not recommended. Substantial differences between the selected test samples sometimes cannot be avoided, as for example, in the case of an aggregate having relatively few large size particles in the sample. The laws of chance dictate that these few particles may be unequally distributed among the reduced size test samples. Similarly, if the test sample is being examined for certain contaminants occurring as a few discrete fragments in only small percentages, caution should be used in interpreting results from the reduced size test sample. Chance inclusion or exclusion of only one or two particles in the selected test sample may importantly influence interpretation of the characteristics of the original sample. In these cases, the entire original sample should be tested.