I remember someone telling me that an official IQ test is timed at 15 minutes. I have obviously been mislead (If you say they take hours I believe you). Is there some kind of ‘quickfire’ version of the test that is designed to test your thinking speed and ability under pressure?
yup there is. it’s called an exam. 
if you’re looking for a specific test that measures this facet of cognitive processing, i have no idea. however, i should think such processing would be related more to the emotional side: anxiety, sympathetic activation and personality. in such a case, a standard measures of personality, such as the MMPI (Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory), or a test that measures responses to stress would be of more use.
btw, the Stanford-Binet has no time limit, i think, though actual time taken is usually about an hour. the WAIS does have a time limit…dunno what it is…maybe Lamia can fill in?
what is with all the threads i get involved in? gang wars always break out! same thing is going on over in my GQ thread on Islam!
Lobsang, what on earth is Gaudre’s law?
i googled “Gaudre’s Law”, “Gaudre Law”, “Gaudre irony”. came up with zilch.
are you a lawmaker? :dubious:
I think it’s Gaudere’s Law, and it is part of SDMB culture rather than a part of the greater world.
I believe Gaudere is the poster who noticed it, or made a thing about it. I haven’t taken the time out to check the exact origins, but that’s how things tend to happen around here. There’s another “law” that states that as soon as you resort to comparisons to Hitler/Nazi Germany in a debate, then you have automatically lost.
I am an author of a study published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal on the measures of the WISC “IQ test”.
Creating a real IQ test is very complicated and expensive. Administering an IQ test is not just a matter of asking a few questions and checking off “right”, or “Bzzzz! Wrong!”. It would take a very long post to explain why it takes training to become a psychometrist with enough credentials to get a real job.
I’ll give you taste on what it takes to create a test in the first place. If you imagine that someone is willing to pay for all this work, and then just give it away on the internet, you’re misinformed.
First, you need a very good knowledge of statistics. You’re going to have to understand distributions (Gaussian normal, Poisson, etc.) because you want your questions to be statistically reliable with a known standard error of measurement. If you don’t know what these are, then you have no business offering opinions on the validity of online tests.
If you want to prove that your IQ test has criterion validity, i.e. that it measures what you claim it does, then you need to measure correlations (e.g. product-moment correlations), and the effect of intercorrelations on scores.
I hope you’re fluent in matrix algebra, because you’ll need to understand factor analysis. Otherwise, it is possible that even though you have 50 questions on a test that they all measure just one thing. Maybe your test measures only verbal fluency in the idioms of south-central Bronx New York, or only your ability with mental rotation of images of objects.
Many threads in Great Debates seem like IQ tests that measure how much you think like the OP, with the author’s eccentricities, biases, use of words, and attitudes. If you match the OP, then you are deemed to be smart by the OP. If your mental constructs don’t match the OP, no matter how “smart” you are, you are considered to be an idiot, dolt, ignorant, unable to think your way through a wet Kleenex, et cetera.
So, we’re up to chapter 6, maybe, on test construction statistics. I haven’t even mentioned discriminant function analysis, multiple regression, cluster analysis…all techniques that try to prove that your test measures what you claim, and that it is reliable, consistent, and unbiased.
Even after all that work, if the conditions of the test are uncontrolled, then nothing can be said about your test’s reliability. If you don’t believe me, then I dare you to take an IQ test while driving through heavy traffic during a thunderstorm, while drunk, and publish your results here for all to see.
There may be sections of some IQ tests that take 15 minutes, but you could never take a complete test in that amount of time. A proper IQ test isn’t just a couple of general knowledge questions, it includes things like pattern-recognition ability, memory, basic problem solving, and so on.
I am unfamiliar with any “quickfire” standardized tests…as aasna mentioned, there is often not a strict time limit on IQ tests. This is because they are not meant to test thinking under pressure. Many people, especially children, become very nervous and do poorly when asked to complete tests rapidly. This would not be a very fair reflection of a person’s general intelligence.
Actually, I don’t dare anyone to drive drunk. That would be stupid!
good post, Franticmad. very informative. would you mind giving me a ref to the article? journal name, year of publication, issue no.? would be neat to look it up, if my library has a subscription.
i recently had the (good?) fortune of working on a school project that involved many of the concepts you mentioned. we were trying to adapt a personality inventory to a certain population sample. fun stuff.
anyway, methinks we needn’t bug Lobsang about online IQ tests anymore. i believe what he was trying to say is that if you’re smart, you’ll perform well in all those online tests too. which is fair. he already got the point that the number obtained from those online testing procedures is unreliable.
well, isn’t that a normal human frailty? some people do not accept opposing viewpoints. too bad for them. if you have the capacity to be objective, revel in it!
I really don’t think it is. Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to answer the dozen or so questions that some mystery person on the Internet came up with. I don’t think we can even trust that the “correct” answers on all online IQ tests are the correct (or the only correct) answers.
Ok,
i’ve got a question. Why are IQ tests age weighted? From what i’ve seen of them the base-line for answers are the age 24-30 range(approximatly), when your supposed to be at your mentally most acute. If someone older or younger than that does the test then in compensation they get a higher IQ score awarded for the same amount of correct responses.
Why? Ok, so it’s supposed to be compensating for age differences.If you didn’t do that then the highest scores would always be for people in the 24-30 range. Surely however this is no more than recognising the facts. You can either answer a question or you can’t. If your not mature or starting to slow down a little with age and can’t match the performance of your younger self well that’s life. So why weight the tests?
I agree with Lamia.
Here’s my online IQ test. Post your answers here (and it is not allowed to use Google or any other aid), and I will tell you how “smart” you are. Trust me.
- What is 3+4x5?
- What is the capital of Nebraska?
- What is the next number in the sequence 2, 3, 5, __ ?
- “Play it again, ___”
- “possibilities” is to “probabilities” as _____ is to “foundations”
Correct answers and your IQ will be posted eventually.
I’m wondering if the OP means to ask “how accurate is any individual’s IQ test”, or “how accurate are IQ tests for the whole population.”
How accurate your IQ test is depends on your condition at the time of testing, the condition of the tester (even if it’s online), whether you’re part of the population that the test was validated against (e.g. if the test was derived in English, but you know only German, then the test can’t measure much about you), what the test questions actually measure.
It is easier to say what test scores mean for a population as a whole. It is harder to know how accurate any individual’s score is.
I think you can practice taking most types of IQ tests and raise your score, just as you can practice doing arithmetic problems and get better at them. Also, how much sleep you get, how healthy you are, how alcohol-steeped your brain cells are all would have an effect on your test score on any given day. So if you’re kind of an idiot, but determined to get into Mensa, you could study real hard, go on the wagon, eat a lot of vitamins, get 10 hours of sleep a night, etc., and with enough attempts at the test, eventually pass it. You only have to pass it once to get into Mensa - no periodic retests like with a driver’s license. An infinite number of monkeys taking the test an infinite number of times and so forth. These tests don’t really measure all of the skills it takes to paint an interesting picture or play music with feeling. Either.
Deptford, the reason that IQ tests are age-weighted is because their primary purpose is to determine if a person is “normal”. If a three year old is as smart as the average three year old, that’s obviously fine, but if a 30 year old is as smart as the average three year old, there are some problems there. So a three year old and a 30 year old should not be given the same score for the same set of responses.
Deptford, the reason that IQ tests are age-weighted is because their primary purpose is to determine if a person is “normal”. If a three year old is as smart as the average three year old, that’s obviously fine, but if a 30 year old is as smart as the average three year old, there are some problems there. So a three year old and a 30 year old should not be given the same score for the same set of responses.
One correction: Yes, Mensa doesn’t require retests once you’ve scored in the top 2%; once you’re in, you’re in, even if you develop Alzheimer’s disease or are brain-damaged in an accident. However, you can’t re-take the proctored test if you score in the lower 98%. And yes, they keep records. The reason is the exact point mentioned by Marie: The practice effect.
If you really wanted to try again, you could go get a private test from a licensed psychologist (costs a lot) and use that as evidence, or dig up some other prior evidence.
Marie is also quite correct in saying that you’ll do better if you’re healthy, well-rested, etc., which is true for most achievements, mental and physical.