Aspects of the literature on single particle breakage test have been reviewed in this article. The test procedures that are commonly used by the researchers in examining and measuring the breakage characteristics of the ore and coal particles are also discussed. It appears that most of the common size distribution function fitting techniques were not suitable for accurate representation of the size distributions obtained from a pendulum breaking process. The single impact test, double impact test (drop weight test, pendulum test) and slow compression test can be used to study the behaviour of the single particle breakage events. The single impact test, slow compression test and drop weight test cannot measure the energy utilization pattern in single particle breakage events, but this can be determined from the pendulum test. The energy utilized for breakage was predominantly dependent upon the size and shape of the specimen, level of input energy and the breakage properties of the specimen. This review highlights that the size distribution curves were linear in the fine particle region and have varying curvature in the coarser region, the gradient of the linear fine particle region of the size distribution curves increases with an increase in the specific comminution energy. The comminution energy increases with input energy at lower levels of input energy but at the higher levels of input energy the comminution energy did not show the same proportional increase. At a given level of input energy, the size distribution resulting from the breakage of the particles by the pendulum apparatus can be represented by a one-parameter family of curves. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.