It would be unethical and otherwise inappropriate and unacceptable of me to share the specific content of published measures of intelligence with you. However, it’s clear enough from the descriptions of these measures online that Vocabulary is a specific, consistent and important component of IQ testing. See for example:
Vocabulary, as a subscale, is one of the strongest individual correlates of the full scale IQ, and when people have investigated abbreviated batteries for estimating IQ, Vocabulary is one of the ones that works really well for such a task.
No. Any test you find online is nearly guaranteed to not be an actual, standardized, established or accepted measure of IQ. The most commonly used measures of IQ are, in my anecdotal estimation, the Wechsler scales (WISC, for children, WAIS for adults), the Stanford Binet, or the Kaufmann Brief Intelligence Test.
My training was as a clinical psychologist, which I underwent in the early to mid 1990’s. I have a Ph.D. and am licensed as a clinical psychologist. My current clinical practice does not include individual intelligence testing as a matter of course. I do use the Kaufmann Brief Intelligence Test (KBIT2) in one of my research projects.
If I were to offer intellectual testing as an individual clinical service, I would as a matter of conscience want to get some retraining, just to make sure I’m not too rusty, but I feel pretty comfortable that I know what I’m talking about on this subject matter.
Everyone has gaps in their knowledge. Some gaps are more surprising than others, but everyone has gaps.
For example, a friend of mine used the term “perseverate” a few weeks ago, and I was astonished because I thought that it was a completely archaic term that no one would EVER use in regular conversation. Why? Because I had only ever seen it in Spenser and I took my exposure to it and extrapolated from there to reach “archaic and obscure.” Then I looked it up and found that I was wrong, not only about the word being in modern use, but that the word was in Spenser (it didn’t exist when Spenser was writing). In other words, I had entirely the wrong end of the stick. I don’t know why, but I did. (I also thought pineapples grew on trees and it took a dope thread to set me straight.)
The fact that I didn’t know those things about the word in no way means that no one else did either. A lot of people on this board seem to think that if they don’t know something, it can’t be generally known. I tend to think if I don’t know something, I don’t know it and that doesn’t reflect other people’s knowledge at all.
I don’t understand how this is possible. A person’s command of vocabulary is extremely contingent on the vocabulary he has been exposed to, isn’t it? And I would assume that the vocabulary one has been exposed to has nothing to do with one’s intelligence. So how can it turn out that the measure of vocabulary strongly correlates with the measure for intelligence?
Okay. Is there no way I can find out what an actual IQ test looks like without purchasing one for a thousand dollars or so?
Thanks for providing that information.
One thing I read says that the Weschler Scale vocabulary section is scored based on the “sophistication of the definition given.” Couple of questions about that, if you’re up for answering them:
A. How do they measure this sophistication
B. Does the definition have to be correct? (If not, then believe it or not, this makes me feel better…)
Sure, i’ll buy that. But, given individuals with equal exposure, do you contend that their vocabulary skills will be equal? And if overall exposure varied so greatly, vocab wouldn’t independently track well with full scale IQ.
It’s important to keep in mind also that your IQ score is not just the raw numbers of right and wrong answers you got when tested, but the conversion of that raw score based on scores from normative groups similar to you.
This I don’t buy at all. I think the vocab you are exposed to has a great deal to do with your intelligence. Smart people don’t typically select books to read with more challenging vocabularies? As to whether it correlates, the fact is that it does, so if there’s a question, it’s what does that really mean.
Not really even then, because typically to purchase these types of measures you need to also provide your qualifications for using them ethnically and appropriately.
I assume that this refers to the fact that it is possible to get one pont for an answer that’s close but not entirely correct, and 2 points for a fully correct answer.
Yes, you have to be correct. I’m getting the sense that there is a thing that you want IQ tests to be, but they just are what they are.
It seems to me that the ability to hear an unfamiliar word, divine its meaning through context, and then recall and correctly use the word at a latter time would also be a function of intelligence.
Before any ersatz copy editors jump on my shit, I just noticed another typo in my previous post, which is somewhat ironic, if not in a clearly meaningful way. But to purchase standard IQ measures, you have to prove that you are qualified to use them “ethically,” not “ethnically.”
I just recently switched from the Droid to the Razr. The keypad is a little bigger, so I don’t struggle quite as much, but I still make more typos than when using a standard keyboard. I do apologize, and I realize that this quite reasonably calls my intelligence into question.
Unless full scale IQ tracks well with exposure to vocabulary.
Fair point!
Yes, that what I was clumsily trying to get at.
Not that I want it to be–something I thought it was based on what people I trust have told me and various bits and pieces I’ve read here and there. Also based on my own lay reasoning concerning what it would take to measure general intelligence.
On this point, I think it’s important to recognize that talking about IQ and talking about intelligence are somewhat different things. IQ is a way of measuring intelligence, but it’s a specific measurement of a less well defined construct.
Nevertheless, it’s a pretty good measurement, in terms of performing overall the way that generally we would expect it to, but there’s lots of room for argument about how we think intelligence should be defined, whether it should include this component or that, and so on.
Actually, if his claim that his SAT score was higher than 99.9% of all people who took it then he shouldn’t be described as merely “smart person” but as a “brilliant person” or “a genius”. Admittedly, I have little confidence in the veracity of his claim.
Believe it or not, at my school, one of my fellow students who scored in the 99th percentile on her SAT didn’t know that the cardinal directions were not relative concepts. That is, she asked us “how can Lake Michigan always be to the east”, which is a common way of orienting yourself in the Chicagoland area. For whatever reason, she had thought east and west were always right and left. That flabbergasted me. People have odd gaps in their knowledge. Yeah, we razzed her a bit, but I’m certainly guilty of such weird gaps, too.
(As for “perseverate,” I admit, I’ve never heard that word before your thread. Or, at least if I did, I don’t remember it.)
I don’t think it’s odd not to have heard the word. It’s not super common. But it’s odd that I had somehow endowed it with an ancient lineage and even remembered exactly where I had read it before–and it was all just my imagination!
Great, you should make a lot of money by making me a prop bet on it then. Assuming you accept the standards of the Triple Nine Society, my 1985 1480 (740M/740V) clears the bar by 30 points (and I took it only once btw, as a high school junior). The cost of ordering the score report, including archival fees, is $38.50. We can agree that the loser of the bet pays for the report plus whatever amount you would like to wager. Heck, I’ll give you 3 to 1 odds to sweeten the deal–how can you resist?
Obviously you shouldn’t bet (but then maybe I’m saying that as bluster to bluff you…which would make this a double reverse psychology move a la Princess Bride). The bottom line is that I may be many things, but dishonest is not one of them. Everything I have attested to here is true to the best of my knowledge.
And now I really do need to go; but I shall return.
ETA: I did also once get a psychologist-administered IQ test, which had one section that was like a combination of the SAT M and V (including vocabulary words btw) which I of course aced (150 or so). The other half though was like pattern recognition and stuff and I got only a 102 on that part, which the psychologist said was a very unusual disparity. Not sure what that means but I like the College Board test better! LOL
No one is immune from having little gaps of ignorance spattered throughout their knowledge.
BTW the SAT is insanely weak and quite easy to score well on (IMO) – it hardly exempts anyone from fallacy via argument from ignorance, nor does it guarantee brains.
