< mine has an alligator clip and an ice pick point - when you say "hook one lead to the battery" do I put clip on the negative or positive post of the battery?

Re-Read my instructions.
It says " Battery - " ...not "Battery + "

You have a standard test lamp ..the point is + and the clip is neg in most cases , but it can be reversed b/c a test lamp is not polarity sensitive.

And b/c in this test we are using the tip to read 12 v.+ , we want the clip on the battery NEG [ - ].
If you put the clip on the POS, your lamp will not lite on any of those test. It needs + and - to lite........that's all.

If the tests were in-situ on the car, I would have just said to use chassis ground , but b/c this is a Bench test , there is no chassis ground, so you use Battery -. Maybe I should have written out Negative, but that does not cross my mind b/c +/- is commonly used on any DC electrical test instructions .

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A Dalton