# What does an IQ of 100 (average) actually imply? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 15, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441 "2013-02-15T22:01:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/61 "2013-02-18T08:40:14Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > “Lacrimose is to dyspeptic as ebullient is to …” Jaunty! ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/62 "2013-02-18T15:07:40Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > Me, all I wanted was a job that gives me steady hours, Get up, go do a job in an office with a computer, go home, forget job until the next day. I have done nothing with my brain except use it to cram for tests in college, memorize dialogue on the way to school on the train, and quickly jump into a series of jobs with little training. I learn quickly. That is all. Not everyone with a high IQ wants to be an engineer or doctor. I don’t have any big ideas on how to change the world. I use my brain to get by. I’m lazy and I can get away with it because my brain works faster. That’s it. My point wasn’t that everyone with a high IQ wants to be a scientist, rather that in the majority of jobs out there, their high IQ won’t be recognized as such and won’t really give someone an edge since the learning curve for most anyone is about two weeks. I recently had a coworker that thought he was smart because he’d repeatedly count out-loud boxes to ten with accuracy. I can count to ten with accuracy as well, but didn’t make an issue of it. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/63 "2013-02-18T15:16:59Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > Me, all I wanted was a job that gives me steady hours, Get up, go do a job in an office with a computer, go home, forget job until the next day. I have done nothing with my brain except use it to cram for tests in college, memorize dialogue on the way to school on the train, and quickly jump into a series of jobs with little training. I learn quickly. That is all. Not everyone with a high IQ wants to be an engineer or doctor. I don’t have any big ideas on how to change the world. I use my brain to get by. I’m lazy and I can get away with it because my brain works faster. That’s it. Am I the only person who thought of this when I read the above part? \ “Ok, brain let’s get things straight. You don’t like me, and i don’t like you, so let’s do this so i can go back to killing you with beer.” \ And, for what it’s worth, I always absolutely hated those “one of these is not like the other” type questions- they tend to either be ones with multiple interpretations, or ones where none of the interpretations are any good. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/64 "2013-02-18T15:41:38Z")
> **[None of the Above](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/17/none-of-the-above?currentPage=all)** > > What I.Q. doesn’t tell you about race. > [@](#): > > The psychologist Michael Cole and some colleagues once gave members of the Kpelle tribe, in Liberia, a version of the WISC similarities test: they took a basket of food, tools, containers, and clothing and asked the tribesmen to sort them into appropriate categories. To the frustration of the researchers, the Kpelle chose functional pairings. They put a potato and a knife together because a knife is used to cut a potato. “A wise man could only do such-and-such,” they explained. Finally, the researchers asked, “How would a fool do it?” The tribesmen immediately re-sorted the items into the “right” categories. ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/65 "2013-02-18T15:49:17Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Am I the only person who thought of this when I read the above part? > > \ > “Ok, brain let’s get things straight. You don’t like me, and i don’t like you, so let’s do this so i can go back to killing you with beer.” > \ > > And, for what it’s worth, I always absolutely hated those “one of these is not like the other” type questions- they tend to either be ones with multiple interpretations, or ones where none of the interpretations are any good. Yes, my example certainly wasn’t. It was meant to be the dog, then after I wrote it I realized it could have been a sled dog. All but the dog were modes of transportation. So my example was actually harder than the actual IQ test I took was. And the Homer quote can’t be more true in my case. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/66 "2013-02-18T17:26:37Z")
So I actually got the interpretation (transportation) you intended. I must be a genius. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/67 "2013-02-18T20:15:14Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > My point was that we all start out at a lower IQ and progress upward from there. To answer your question, it may be worth looking at your childhood. How was your decision-making and insight different than as an older child or adult? Well, I started out with a very high IQ score when I was first tested, age 5, and it had fallen with every subsequent test (I took a few as a youngster because I was a]crazy and b]an underachiever of the flunking grades variety). This is pretty common, from what I’ve read, for children with high scores early in life (often labeled ‘gifted’). A variability of IQ scores throughout childhood and adolescence, and the tendency for precocious kids to even out over the years, I mean; not so much the underachieving and flunking. Although plenty of bright kids do so. I ended up dropping out of high school and still, at 27, have no interest in attempting college. I’ve often wondered about the science of adjusting IQ scores for age on the Wechsler, etc. I read a study recently which tracked IQ scores for a group of children over time. IIRC the results showed that children who had high IQ scores early, on average, saw a lowering of those scores over time, sometimes a drastic one. Other children, who had more average early childhood IQs, experienced a ‘leap’ at some point between ages 10 and 14 or so; and those children generally ended up with higher IQ than the kids who had been labeled ‘gifted’ early on. Let me see if I can dig it up. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/68 "2013-02-18T20:27:56Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > I read a study recently which tracked IQ scores for a group of children over time. IIRC the results showed that children who had high IQ scores early, on average, saw a lowering of those scores over time, sometimes a drastic one. Other children, who had more average early childhood IQs, experienced a ‘leap’ at some point between ages 10 and 14 or so; and those children generally ended up with higher IQ than the kids who had been labeled ‘gifted’ early on. Let me see if I can dig it up. I think at really young ages, there’s a lot of “noise” involved with assessing intelligence, because of wildly differing parental involvement, pre-school training, etc… I’m one of those kids who was identified as gifted as a kid, and I can say that some of my gifted program classmates weren’t really so much bright as they were some combination of really well taught before school, had very high parental involvement and support, and were extremely determined. They were the kids who made good grades more through memorization and extreme attention to detail, not through problem-solving, etc… They usually had a hard time with more open-ended assignments and things that didn’t have a “right” answer. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/69 "2013-02-18T20:37:53Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > The psychologist Michael Cole and some colleagues once gave members of the Kpelle tribe, in Liberia, a version of the WISC similarities test: they took a basket of food, tools, containers, and clothing and asked the tribesmen to sort them into appropriate categories. To the frustration of the researchers, the Kpelle chose functional pairings. They put a potato and a knife together because a knife is used to cut a potato. “A wise man could only do such-and-such,” they explained. Finally, the researchers asked, “How would a fool do it?” The tribesmen immediately re-sorted the items into the “right” categories. Wow. That is some pretty hard core _BAD_ IQ testing. They just simply rounded up some household stuff and improvised an IQ test and found that their test was faulty because it could be solved in different ways? Well, _DUH_! For real IQ tests that don’t get pointed at and laughed at, they go through rigorous testing themselves. If a significant percent of the general population gets a test question wrong, it gets thrown out as being a bad question. If a which-of-these-don’t-belong question gets answered ‘incorrectly’ by a lot of people, the test takers ask those who got it wrong why they chose the ‘wrong’ answer, and if their answer makes sense, then they realize they have a test question with more than one correct answer, and then they toss it. So, when a ‘psychologist’ sets up a bad categorization test, thinking that he can just whip up a valid IQ test on the fly, the finding is that the psychologist was the one with the low IQ, not the test-takers. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/70 "2013-02-18T23:29:55Z")
> [@Pacific420](#): > > My understanding of match is pathetic…long division is a challenge for me never mind anything such as calculus; does being really poor at math automatically mean I wouldn’t to do well on an IQ test? From personal experience, no. Being pathetically bad at math didn’t keep me out of our school system’s gifted program, admittance to which was based on IQ scores. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/71 "2013-02-19T01:25:05Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > Me, all I wanted was a job that gives me steady hours, Get up, go do a job in an office with a computer, go home, forget job until the next day. I have done nothing with my brain except use it to cram for tests in college, memorize dialogue on the way to school on the train, and quickly jump into a series of jobs with little training. I learn quickly. That is all. Not everyone with a high IQ wants to be an engineer or doctor. I don’t have any big ideas on how to change the world. I use my brain to get by. I’m lazy and I can get away with it because my brain works faster. That’s it. What about boredom, do you find yourself bored all the time? I don’t know my IQ, but I would wager it is about 115-120 (I have an undergrad degree in a scientific field but was a B- student), far lower than the 132 you need to get into mensa. And I find myself getting bored with routine things all the time. I know my younger brother who is way smarter has the same issue (he went the MD/PhD route, plus he has self taught himself a ton of stuff like car repair, home repair, electronics, culinary arts, etc just to stave off boredom) ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/72 "2013-02-19T02:14:23Z")
I work mostly menial jobs, and when I get bored I quit or go very part-time and get a new, more interesting job (sometimes it’s just interesting because it’s new). My jobs either a]keep me constantly moving and solving problems or b]come along with plenty of down time for me to be reading, learning or talking to people in between customers. Waiting tables, tending bar, being a barista, working retail (in the right company and department, where you enjoy interacting with co-workers and customers and have plenty of challenging tasks), teaching yoga - all can be quite interesting, as well as being low-stress and easy to excel at. At least for me. And picking up a new job in the same line of work is almost effortless once you have experience. I can go anywhere in the country, if I feel like it, and get another serving job which will support me in style. Most bright people I know who, like **Sister Vigilante** , work low-stress office jobs and aren’t particularly ambitions - use their higher-than-average brain power to spend perhaps 2 hours per day doing the required work. The other 6 hours of the work day, they are therefore free to fill with whatever they like - often learning about new things on the internet. Or just fucking around on Facebook and the Straight Dope, whatever. Life is really what you make of it, my mind is constantly active and I find new things to learn and do all the time no matter what I’m doing to make money. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/73 "2013-02-19T16:26:35Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > No, it’s the boat. All the others move on land, the boat moves on water. > > No, wait. It’s the dog. All the rest are non-living. > > No, wait, it’s the car. It’s the only one that isn’t a neolithic invention. > > This sort of thing happens in all sorts of IQ tests. Not just questions of this type, but also questions of the “what pattern is next in this sequence” type and the “Lacrimose is to dyspeptic as ebulient is to …” type questions. > > This is the reason why “real” IQ tests are supposed to be applied by people trained in their interpretation, and accompanied by a follow up answer where the subject gets to explain their answers. Intelligent people are, ironically, more likely to get some of these questions wrong because they can readily see answers aside from the obvious. My first thought was the car was the only one with wheels. Then I latched onto dog, the only alive thing. A lot of stuff depends on education or cultural knowledge; I remember watching the earlier, cleverer Big Bang Theory episodes, and beacuse I have a background in physics I could catch a lot of the jokes that I’m sure went over the heads of a lot fo other people or did not register with them. For example, Sheldon starts going on about “Flatland” and I thought (a) I have that book and (b) I have read a few analyses of the topic. I assume for someone watching for the comic book jokes, it was just noise. OTOH, although I don’t read comics (since about age 15, unless you count Heavy Metal type euro-comics) I have read enough about the culture that I get those jokes. Plus, a lot of the typical “clever” trick puzzles I’ve probably seen and remember the answers to. (What’s next in sequence: OTTFFSSE…? what’s the sum of the numbers from 1 to 100?) It makes me look smarter than I am. (Person 1: “I’m not as dumb as you think I am!” Person 2: “You couldn’t be!”) It’s a matter of how informed. I remember helping someone study for those pattern IQ tests you can’t study for (in this case, preparing for an aptitude test for a job application). It helps to have seen several of these beforehand rather than trying to figure it out on the fly during a timed test. Which one is next in sequence? See here, the outer square goes black-white-black while the inner triangle appears to be rotating clockwise in the sequence. This one the dots in the middle go 1, 4,3,2, … odds are you are looking for a 5 next, then a zero? Practice with a bunch of these and I bet the average person can boost perceived IQ several points over someone taking the test cold who hasn’t done academic stuff in years. Even the simple “finger is to glove as…” is easier if you have done a few examples earlier. the big problem is the ambiguous questions like the earlier post example, where you can find mutliple reasons why it’s A, or B, or C… ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/74 "2013-02-21T16:52:55Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#): > > Most bright people I know who, like **Sister Vigilante** , work low-stress office jobs and aren’t particularly ambitions - use their higher-than-average brain power to spend perhaps 2 hours per day doing the required work. The other 6 hours of the work day, they are therefore free to fill with whatever they like - often learning about new things on the internet. Or just fucking around on Facebook and the Straight Dope, whatever. Pretty much this. I wouldn’t say I get bored, but I am depressed and would really like to just sleep all the time. I’ve tried a number of drugs, none of which worked. But yeah, the above pretty much has described my working life. In my previous job, my predecessor told me “it’s _a lot_ of work.” I did pretty much nothing all day, and prefer to learn new things online, which is why I spend the entire day on sites like this. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/75 "2013-02-21T19:32:36Z")
I’m one of those people who seems to be able to do all my work in a fraction of time that others can. I’m also frequently bored at work- I don’t want to do things over and over again; repetitive tasks or rinky-dink little mods to software just make me lose focus and quit paying attention to what I’m doing because it’s mind-numbing. Give me a real challenge to solve, and a minimal level of oversight and nit-pickery, and I’m happy. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441/76 "2013-02-21T23:59:23Z")
Reading this thread I didn’t know getting your job done fast was a sign of intelligence. I know I run into that a lot but I have always ascribed it to being good at prioritizing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-an-iq-of-100-average-actually-imply/650441.md?page=3)