Wots yer IQ?

[Flying_Monkey]

there's a school of thought among psychologists that iq tests test the ability to do iq tests and little else.

It all depends on what you think 'intelligence' is anyway, and whether you can measure it in any meaningful way... IQ tests measure certain aspects of intelligence. What' particularly dangerous is the idea that any serious decisions about children's futures should be based in IQ tests.

 

[GaryA]

I agree, Intelligence and (if this is the right word) intellect are two different and often unlinked things

(Intellect as in the ability to think independently)

 

[bonj2]

Following on from Bettys' post. And we all know that achieving a good grade in an IQ test proves nothing but an ability to do well in IQ test...

Last time I looked; 136.

exactly... presumably the person who designs the IQ test has to know all the answers, and therefore has an infinite IQ? Nevertheless, my IQ's probably only a couple of thousand or so nowadays. Fairlly modest really, I'm no smartarse.

 

[trustysteed]

unless they just design answer-less questions of puzzles that have no solutions and piss themselves seeing people trying to answer them!

 

[bonj2]

like the person that managed to set up a queue of people going round all four sides of a building, with each person able to see the queue go round the next corner, thinking it went into a door on the other side, but it never did...

 

[trustysteed]

like the person that managed to set up a queue of people going round all four sides of a building, with each person able to see the queue go round the next corner, thinking it went into a door on the other side, but it never did...

was that a 'stupid's queube'?!

 

[gbb]

I must admit that I was intrigued to read that you could increase your IQ considerably by a lot of practice on the questions. If there was a fairly limited stock of standard questions and you worked hard, then no doubt you could become a genius.

I can understand that...i compare it to my crosswords..
I used to love cryptic crosswords...Saturday Telegraph was my favourite, but others as well. I strugged at first, of course. Then you begin to open up your brain, and it flows...it gets easier and easier.
I havnt done them now for 5 years. I pick one up and struggle to answer 4 questions

Using an online IQ test, i just got 132. Somewhere near the last score i did IIRC.

 

[Abitrary]

All those tests finding patterns in shapes and whatever, even the grammatical stuff, they're never even used in real life except for tests to get into Mensa, and I don't know what the point of that is.

There's no social stuff like, for example, ending up accidentally drinking with some tramps in the park one day, and they get nasty and you have to talk your way out of it... make your point and leave without upsetting them

 

[trustysteed]

whoohoo, just got 140

here
but i'm too stupid to know what that means!

 

[will]

IQ?

I always liked the Princess Bride:


Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
Westley: You're that smart?
Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Westley: Yes.
Vizzini: Morons.

 

[Plax]

142, but that was several years ago and I've drunk away most of my brain cells since.

 

[Blue]

there's a school of thought among psychologists that iq tests test the ability to do iq tests and little else.

Even the members of Mensa have debated this issue. A fair few of them, myself included, tended to agree at the time of the debate.

However, I am one of the members with good academic qualifications as well as a high score on an IQ test. I led a successful professional career and was able to retire very early. I suppose it would be a case of denial to say that my IQ score proved nothing but itself and, in view of that, I won't do so!!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

All those tests finding patterns in shapes and whatever, even the grammatical stuff, they're never even used in real life except for tests to get into Mensa, and I don't know what the point of that is.

I don't understand the point of Mensa either, and its supposed to be for people like me, apparently. I tend to think of the kind of people who'd want to join a 'club for the clever' as people I would probably want to avoid...

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

I don't understand the point of Mensa either, and its supposed to be for people like me, apparently. I tend to think of the kind of people who'd want to join a 'club for the clever' as people I would probably want to avoid...

The only people I've come across who are Mensa members are people who didn't go to university and have a chip on their shoulders about it. My mother in law did the test and was told she could join, but didn't bother as she'd been to Oxford.

 

[Blue]

I got into Mensa in a kind of unintentional way.

In the 1970's the Belfast Telegraph ran a competition called the 'Brain of Ulster' which my then boss and myself entered. We did equally well in the first rounds but then found that the final was a supervised IQ test organised by Mensa. I was some 20 points ahead of him on the IQ score and got admitted to Mensa whilst he didn't. He didn't speak to me for 2 years after that!! I didn't like him, so stayed in to rub salt in the wound

At the start of the competition I had no idea that Mensa was using it as a marketing ploy - indeed, I had never heard of them.