Converse of object

• become: His success has become the unofficial yardstick for any overseas executive put in charge of a local firm in trouble.

• provide: Secondly, the assessment provides a yardstick with which to measure any change.

• use: Cloth had to be measured in a certain way using yardsticks calibrated on the Dumfries foot.

• have: He will then find he has a yardstick against which to measure the worth of all other literature on the same subject.

• apply: This can be done indirectly by applying the same yardstick to the Marxists and the disciples of Foucault as they apply to others.

• find: REM critics need to find a new yardstick to measure this band against.

Converse of subject

• judge: In Afghanistan, Nato does indeed appear to be failing, judged by the most obvious yardsticks.

• measure: Seriousness in security is still measured by the yardstick of expenditure of GDP on military power.

Adjective modifier

• fundamental: He continues to say that is the fundamental yardstick of our nation's economic success.

• useful: Wednesday's game at Derby also offered a useful yardstick by which the Tiger faithful could judge just how far we have come.

• objective: Yet a theatrical legacy cannot always be measured by such seemingly objective yardsticks.

• good: A good yardstick is ' Am I being bitten?

• same: For the most part, we measure them all with the same yardstick.

• own: My own yardstick for a wall to worktop maximum gap would be no greater than 3mm.

Noun used with modifier

• poverty: There is currently a world-wide debate on poverty yardsticks to identify the poor.

Preposition: of

• equality: The yardstick of equality has provided much needed guidance.

• performance: Productivity growth - what the Chancellor himself called the " the fundamental yardstick of economic performance " - has slumped.

• division: Before making an order for division of assets, a judge should check his tentative views against the yardstick of equal division.

• progress: If we continue to allow our schools to churn out illiterates perhaps we should adopt some similar yardstick of progress for the next government.

Preposition: for

• success: The yardstick for success in the modern world is whether the services we fund deliver their core purpose.