Took one the other day, about 40 questions consisting of puzzle/predicting, math/logic, and strange word analogies. It says I have an IQ score of 133. Please don’t flame me too badly, but how serious should I take this obvious above-average score? Is it true that 100 is average and Einstein’s was over 160? Is below 75 considered retarded? I’m skeptical that 40 online questions could accurately measure one’s IQ, but there’s got to me some consistency and validity to these tests no? Sorry in advance if this doesn’t belong in IMHO.
The only thing IQ tests are good for, is determining how well you do on IQ tests. Period. Paragraph.
Thread.
It depends on the test. There are several different IQ tests and they have different score levels for genius/retarded/average/etc… On some IQ tests the maximum points available are 130 or less, others go up to 200. IQ tests online probably give you an idea of “real” IQ tests but the tests are only considered valid if conducted by a qualified tester (usually a psychologist or psychology major) and in a qualified testing environment. Even then there is major controversy over whether any IQ test is valid due to educational and environmental factors (i.e. Person A may be more intelligent than Person B but because B has less anxiety over testing/is feeling better on the day he takes the test/had access to better education or training in problems of the sort the test poses/etc.).
I’m sure there are others who can say this, but I’ve tested at low-normal (when I was about 5) and at genius levels (when I was taking the test for a friend working on her PhD in psych) on IQ tests. They can’t both be right and I suspect neither is.
Well touche, however, one could argue that the only thing SAT scores measure is how well one performs on the SAT, period…but in a fast-paced society where we want to quantify our “abilities”, tests like these are the closest thing we got short of living and interacting with an individual for an extended period of time as evaluation no?
SoulSearching, I’m going to disagree.
There are a number of things that can be evaluated in a test. Even one like the SATs or online intelligence tests. But by their nature they cannot test a number of other factors of personality or intelligence.
Forex: follow-through is something I think that’s much more important than intelligence, for choosing someone to have working with or for me. I want to know that they’ll do the work assigned without me having to sit over them with a mallet. And that’s not something that can be tested.
Other things that are hard to test include imagination, general task solutions (I almost called this problem solving, but I’m trying to think of a term for giving someone a real world task or problem, and leaving the solution up to them.), leadership ability and potential.
All of these traits are things that I’d generally consider as being aspects of what I’d describe as intelligence.
YMMV, of course - but that’s my view.
So, you think of follow-through as both “much more important than intelligence” as well as an aspect of what you’d describe as intelligence?
Now, I can come up with ways to make that make sense, but I don’t think they’re what you really meant. Perhaps you could clarify? Seems to me what you’re pointing out isn’t “What the SATs test isn’t intelligence” so much as “Pure intelligence itself isn’t all that important; other things matter quite a lot”.
IQ tests might work, and give an (at least partly) accurate estimate of your intelligence, but these online things I really doubt.
First of all, because they tend to be too short (so that people don’t get bored halfway through). Secondly, it seems they give too high scores, overall. I remember one of those online tests giving me an IQ of 130-140 a while back, I was very pleased, until I realised that 1. I’m probably not that intelligent, and 2. that they wanted to sell me some “certificate” proving my high IQ. Of course they would sell more of those certificates if the test was designed to give you a high score. Who would want to buy a certificate stating they have an IQ of 75, after all?
SoulSearching writes:
> Is it true that 100 is average and Einstein’s was over 160?
It’s unlikely that Einstein ever took an I.Q. test. He published his paper on the General Theory of Relativity in 1915. In 1915, I.Q. tests were just beginning to be used on large groups (as opposed to occasional use on a few children). The first general use of I.Q. tests were on American soldiers in World War I. Why would a world-famous scientist take an I.Q. test? If he didn’t take an I.Q. test, there’s no way to be sure what his I.Q. is. There are claims that one can estimate a person’s I.Q. depending on a person’s accomplishments, but most psychologists specializing in intelligence research don’t accept that.
If you don’t know that 100 is average (by definition), then you should do some more reading on intelligence and I.Q. testing before you go any further. Look up “intelligence” in Wikipedia. Read a book on I.Q. testing. Read the thread going on in the GQ forum at the moment about I.Q. testing. Incidentally, online tests and tests in magazines for I.Q. are worthless. If you want to know your I.Q., you need to go to a psychologist specializing in I.Q. testing to be professionally tested, although frankly it’s not worth the trouble.
I was working in a little office with a bunch of people when one of them took some online IQ test and was all proud and strutting cuz he got a 140. We all had to listen to a bunch of ‘See I told you’ and shit. I told him that online IQ tests are garbage, they’re just trying to sell something or they’re useless or whatever. He got mad and said I was calling him stupid. So I took the IQ test, and got 185. As he stood staring slack jawed at the number on the screen I told him that he either had to accept that I was way smarter than him, or that online tests are crap. We never did hear his decision.
this is always my answer to anything about IQ that comes up. I also usually mention that wanting to quantify your own intelligence is both vain and competitive in an off putting way. Having a high IQ wont take the sting out of getting picked last for kickball.
Every IQ test I’ve ever taken I’m either too bored to finish or I cheat really badly which Im determined is a really smart thing to do and I should get like 30 clever points added to my score for cheating. Its an IQ test not a moral and values test. Also, my own scores will vary way too much. How do you explain that? I’m only an idiot on some days?
but i cant be a bitch in that one