IN THE LAST CHAPTER WE TOOK the sample to the laboratory door; now it is our purpose to prepare it for analysis. Actually, in many high-speed metal-refining operations no one carries samples to the laboratory; they arrive by pneumatic tube from the furnace-side station where they were taken. What happens next is likely to be just as complicated and to involve just as many decisions as what has gone before. What we must formulate now is the final phase of the sampling plan. To this point our primary concern has been the representativeness of the sample, which, of course, must continue to be the prime objective of the sampling plan. In this phase, our aim is to represent the laboratory sample in the test portion.