# Have you ever had an IQ test? Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 14, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444 "2010-05-14T16:31:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/21 "2010-05-14T18:23:29Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Could you give some examples? Having never taken the test, I am curious. > > Let’s just say that after spending a solid month studying math for the GRE, with maybe a couple hours put into looking over vocabulary words, I scored in 98th percentile on the verbal section and the 49th percentile on the math - and I was absolutely _delighted_ with my math score, and it was really all I cared about. > > Sometimes I think I’m some kind of idiot savant and I wonder what an IQ test would tell me. Well, if I told you what the questions were exactly, it would ruin the validity of the test. But imagine they wanted to know things like who wrote _The Hunchback of Notre-Dame._ There were questions about Western philosophy, Western literature, Western history and the like, but few references to history, events and literature in other parts of the world. I couldn’t help but feel that portion of the test was biased toward well-read, well-educated people, thus punishing the non-educated for their ignorance rather than evaluating their raw _intelligence_. I consider myself to be somewhat handicapped in math – it will be my greatest hurdle should I choose to take the GRE. But I was very surprised to score quite well on the quantitative portion of the IQ test. I even did well on the story problems (which required a lot of mental math.) You may be surprised. The portion that really dragged my score down overall was the coding and copying. I have terrible hand-eye coordination and my brain works rather slowly. ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/22 "2010-05-14T18:30:31Z")
When I was in 2nd grade or so, I was a little ADD. Folks had me tested this way and that. I remember astonishing the Dr. with my (correct) answers to some arcane questions. Scored pretty high, so the next trip was to Mensa. I think that was my peak. Life’s just gone downhill ever since.😃 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/23 "2010-05-14T18:32:49Z")
I’ve had two. One was because my uncle wanted to know my IQ. This test was when I was 14, 15 or so. The other because my wife and I wanted to see who had the higher IQ. (There was a 2-point differential, btw). We were in our early to mid-20s. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/24 "2010-05-14T18:35:53Z")
I had one in college. My psych prof was doing research that linked the results to drawing that we made. I have no idea what the outcome was. I know that at one point I had the results of the test, but I don’t recall them clearly, nor how they correlated to the drawings that I made. (I recall the number, but not the standard deviations.) ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/25 "2010-05-14T18:38:28Z")
My girlfriend was getting a graduate psych degree, so I was a guinea pig for her and all her psychometry colleagues. I took 'em all: Stanford Binet, WAIS, WISC-R, MMPI, TAT, Rorschach, etc. They never told me how I did, nor should they have. About the only response I ever got was when I asked how I did on the Stanford Binet, and she said, “Trust me, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Although I admit I did screw with them a little on the Rorschach. “Two vaginas during sychronized swimming” indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/26 "2010-05-14T18:38:31Z")
Yeah, I took one in order to get into a magnet/“gifted” school. So did my brother, in order to get into the same school. I’m not going to reveal what we got, but our mom did tell us the results, and we were the same. Exactly the same. I wonder if she told us that in order to not hurt anyone’s feelings. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/27 "2010-05-14T19:01:26Z")
In school. They never told us the scores, though I have seen that, according to other criteria, I’m Mensa eligible (shows how useless their standards are). ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/28 "2010-05-14T19:01:36Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Honestly, I’d be embarassed to get an IQ test. I practice disability law, and it hasn’t taken long for me to begin thinking of IQ tests as the things you get to document that you’re genuinely too dim to work. > > I know it isn’t so, of course - but my first thought on meeting someone who’d had an IQ test as an adult would probably be “What’s wrong with you?” That is cracking me up. By the way, I love the way the OP tried so hard to avoid posters just posting their sky high scores. I think the OP underestimates the creativity of a person that _really_ wants to make their high score known, somehow. I’ve never taken one that I know of, but I am interested to learn in this thread that it is a huge, hours long, one on one ordeal complete with props! I thought it was just a lil’ paper test. ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/29 "2010-05-14T19:08:33Z")
Yes. As part of a study on genetics and ADHD, my family and I were tested to see if a link could be found. ---
**Author:** ![Baracus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@Baracus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baracus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/30 "2010-05-14T19:16:40Z")
I have “taken” a number of various IQ and other type tests because my wife is a school psychologist and she needed a guinea pig. Other than that I don’t recall taking any IQ tests even though I was in advanced programs in school. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/31 "2010-05-14T19:21:00Z")
Yes, either in 6th or 7th grades. In 8th grade a kid in the front of the classroom noted that everyone had their IQ scores written in the teachers book. This was an honors class, so we might have been given it for placement. The school never told me officially, I don’t know if they told my parents or not. Back in the early '60s this seemed pretty standard. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/32 "2010-05-14T19:29:20Z")
Like everybody else, in school. Kicked me into what was then called MGM (Mentally Gifted Minors) and is now called GATE (Gifted and Talented Education). No clue what the score was, other than it met the minimum. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/33 "2010-05-14T19:31:55Z")
Twice that I can remember, both by psychologists–once when I was about four or five years old, and another before I went into the 7th grade. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/34 "2010-05-14T19:32:05Z")
I was tested at age 4 as part of a psych eval, cause I was crazy; a couple times at ages 10-11 or so, to see if I qualified for the school Gifted and Talented Program; and I think another one at around 13 when I was undergoing tests which ended in a diagnosis of ADD and a math disability. All were given to me one on one by psychologists. I think they were differents types of test, but don’t remember/care to look up the details… > [@Kyla](#): > > Could you give some examples? Having never taken the test, I am curious. > > I’d like to be tested, personally. I do wonder what it would say about me. I am extremely imbalanced in my abilities - I am very good at language-related subjects and very, very poor at math and whole collection of skill sets that feel related to math in my mind (I have a terrible sense of direction, I can’t play strategy games, I can’t remember the _rules_ to games, I have a difficult time reading diagrams, music theory makes no sense to me, logic puzzles are incomprehensible to me, etc.), to the extent that I’m actually getting screened for learning disabilities next week. Let’s just say that after spending a solid month studying math for the GRE, with maybe a couple hours put into looking over vocabulary words, I scored in 98th percentile on the verbal section and the 49th percentile on the math - and I was absolutely _delighted_ with my math score, and it was really all I cared about. > > Sometimes I think I’m some kind of idiot savant and I wonder what an IQ test would tell me. I could have written the first part of your post, same exact issues. From what I understand about intellectual ability and testing it’s within the range of normal to have uneven intelligence, although it’s certainly not the average. Most people tend to score within the same general ranges on different sections of a given test, but not people like us. My scores are all over the place and my total number is brought down quite a bit by my weak spots. And of course, it doesn’t reflect that I am gifted in some areas and struggle more than the average person in others. People who are not neurotypical in various ways (ADD, autistic spectrum) are more likely to have pronounced strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes it’s so extreme that they have a total IQ in the ‘retarded’ range despite impressive abilities in several areas - this is true of several very talented and educated autistic people I can think of. Anyway, if you’re curious, take one. They are kinda fun, and it might be useful for you to see exactly where/what your weaknesses are. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/35 "2010-05-14T19:35:17Z")
I guess it wasn’t professionally-administered–in college, my roommate was getting a master’s in psychology and had to give some IQ tests, so she gave one to me. It was pretty fun. ---
**Author:** ![Redwing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@Redwing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redwing)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/36 "2010-05-14T19:47:49Z")
I took one in the second grade, part of whole suite of tests for various learning disabilities. I recall getting two scores back, one for verbal and one for mechanical. I couldn’t tell you which parts were the IQ test, and which were something else, but there were two days of constant tests, and at least one or two follow up appointments. Thinking about it now, I’m wondering how things were measured. A second grader who can’t read in any meaningful way was shown to have an above average verbal IQ. That the test was able to compensate for my yet undiagnosed dyslexia, and even to help highlight it, still surprises me. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/37 "2010-05-14T20:05:32Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > That is cracking me up. > > By the way, I love the way the OP tried so hard to avoid posters just posting their sky high scores. I think the OP underestimates the creativity of a person that _really_ wants to make their high score known, somehow. Exactly. I can think of 191 ways to make my score known, while my wife can think of only 189 ways… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/38 "2010-05-14T20:05:47Z")
I took one when I was seven or so to get into the gifted and talented program in elementary school. I don’t know my exact score, nor have ever been interested. I’m now established in my professional career and haven’t taken one since. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/39 "2010-05-14T20:32:53Z")
My mom had me tested when I was something like four. I only vaguely remember it, but when I was in grad school getting trained in administering, scoring, and interpreting the Wechsler scales, some of the sub-tests triggered the memory, so I asked her about it. She said she had me tested because I was scaring her and she wanted to know what to do to best provide me with the intellectual stimulation I needed. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444/40 "2010-05-14T20:37:19Z")
I took the WAIS-R in high school. My guidance counselor at one point decided that I needed to talk to the district psychologist, and apparently that’s part of the standard workup they did to see if he was right. Must not have been, because I don’t remember ever meeting that psychologist again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-had-an-iq-test-why/539444.md?page=3)