Do IQ Tests actually work?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was wondering if IQ Tests actually worked? If they do or if they give a fair understanding of a persons intelligance, is there somewhere on the net - FOR FREE to take one?

If you can all aggree on one… care to post your results??

2

I think IQ test discussions have been done to death and no one really cares anymore, hence the dearth of replies.

Points:

  1. IQ tests determine how well you do on IQ tests. This may or may nor correlate to what other skills you have.

  2. The questions are oftentimes flawed, like Anthony Burgess’s favorite example: 20 words, put into two groups. A student noticed half were of Greek origin and half were of Latin origin. Got it all wrong. Half were nouns and half were verbs. You can start an endless debate about the “Sun is to day as ____ is to night.” one. I have seen absolutely horrible, ambiguous and downright wrong IQ questions.

  3. I was curious and tried to find one on the Net not too long ago (to get examples of bad IQ questions) but what Google returned first were sites with really dubious things going on. If you are serious about getting an IQ test, contact Mensa (whether you are interested in joining or not).

I have not had a serious IQ test done since grade school. But I got a perfect score on an advanced GRE test. That qualifies me for not just Mensa, but the next level up Uber-Mensa club (whatever it’s called). BTW, it was in an area other than my own. I’m good at multiple choice tests. (And we’ll skip those essay questions, if you don’t mind.)

3

I’d say IQ tests do work sortof. The correlation is pretty low, but smart people are in general better at IQ tests and vice versa. One doesn’t imply the other, but it makes it more likely. They’re pretty bad, but not entirely broken.

As for the net, no. There are no good online IQ tests AFAIK.

4

Heh. I just took this test again. (Warning: have a dummy e-mail account ready–you will be spammed after your results come in.)

A year ago, I did exceptionally well on that test–above where I normally test. This time, I was working on the premise that no matter how bad I did my score would still be an ego-pleasing number. So I intentionally gave the wrong answers, to the least of my ability.

Well, here it is:

That actually pisses me off a little, because I was shooting for a goose egg, but I guess I’m not as stupid as I could wish. Anyway, it seems as if the honesty of that particular test isn’t very much in question (unless I really did score a zero and they spotted me 38 points).

5
      • Online IQ tests work, but people can cheat by putting two of those stick-on cellphone antennas on their head.
        And also rubbing some Oxy-Clean on them too.
6

Online IQ tests are so inaccurate that they’re essentially useless. The ones in books called Figure Out Your Own IQ aren’t much better. Even the IQ tests sometimes given in schools aren’t very good. For an accurate IQ test, you would need to be individually tested by a psychologist who’s an expert at it.

7

Wendell, as always, speaks the truth.

However, I’m still basking in the microwave radiation of my 38 I.Q. Nobody on these boards is stupider than I, ha-ha!

I’m going to go chew on a rock now…