I know how unreliable it is to take IQ tests online or under other situations that are not controlled... but I have taken many for mental challenges and overall they measure me at about 127. What I have noticed and read about is the tests weight verbal more than other factors. Taking these tests seperately, it seems my verbal IQ is somewhere around 100 to 116. Math/Spatial is 146. I am fairly happy with that... I never cared much for words anyway. However, for some reason the papers I wrote in English for college received good reviews from professors.. probably because I treat my first draft as my final draft so it takes me 2 hours to write one damned page, double spaced. LOL.
Perhaps the reason that a majority of scores from online IQ tests are above average is that such tests have a self-selection bias toward those with above-average intelligences. Most seem to realise that online opinion polls will have self-selection biases, and so it should not be very surprising that websites which deign to bestow a numerical value to one's intelligence will also tend to draw certain types of people disproportionate to their incidence in the general population - such as the keen and the curious. As for the concept of IQ tests, they are crude at best. Since intelligence is modular in ways more sophisticated than we can even pretend to know, sincere IQ tests must attempt to probe a common denominator between them. Such a denominator is speculative, to put it mildly, and naturally precludes a capacity to ferret out the peculiar nuances which distinguish the great geniuses from each other. And being able to notice and accurately identify such distinctions is not optional when attempting to seriously classify human intelligence at its highest levels. This inevitably condemns single-numbered portrayals of brilliance as absurdly simplistic imposters. This is not, of course, to imply that such tests are entirely worthless. They are perhaps most useful (aside from entertainment value) when wishing to ascertain certain relative skills capacities in children. But childhood scores bequeath no practical relevance in adulthood. Prodigies are notorious for fading into obscurity upon coming of age. If there were no IQ tests, how would one go about estimating the intelligence of another? We rarely know anyone else's supposed IQ, and so we are forced to infer by other means all the time. Is it a useful activity to speculate whether Leonardo was smarter than Bach? Not as useful as other things we can spend our time on - and our time, after all, is very limited and precious indeed.
Yes, I think it is true those that are above average tend to take IQ tests more than average and below average. However, that does not explain why an average Joe scores 130+ on iqtest.com, for example. The average IQ score is, by definition, 100. So if ONLY those that were gifted took the test, they should score on average 100. The tests online inflate the scores for one of three reasons (or some or all). One, they are selling something. Maybe a package to make you even smarter than you already are! Or two, they just did not make a good test. Or three, their statistic collection methods are poor. However, even if IQ tests do not accurately measure intelligence they do seem to measure something that differentiates intelligent people from the less-intelligent. I for one think it is a rough messure of how efficient one's brain is. Given enough time, probably 95% of the humans alive could solve all the problems on even the toughest IQ test (assuming answers are available). That is why the tests are timed.
So, my questionis, do the IQ testing people change their tests at all? Since if 100 is supposed to be average, and for whatever reason more peopel are getting over 100, then its no longer the average...
Good question Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What they generally do is make a new IQ test every 6 months or something like that (I do know really know) to keep the tests both fresh and the average at 100. Over the last 50 years, they have been increasing the difficulty levels of the tests without even knowing it! So recently some guy figured it out and the only conclusion he can come up with is that people are actually getting smarter by the generation. Which when you think about it, it is true.
ahhhm but this "they", that would be the proper, responsible IQ testing companies, right? Whereas the cheap online ones would jsut rip things off and use old test questions. Therefore that woudl help contribute to the increase in IQ.
smarter? How about, they are getting better at making the questiosn answerable. Have you read S J goulds "The mismeasure of Man"? He set some of his university classes to do some of the old WW1 US army tests, and they couldnt get scores commensurate with their age, because the tests were so rubbishly made, the questions assumed a great deal of prior knowledge about US society and stuff.
How much one knows does not prove how intelligent one is. However, an intelligent person must have some knowledge to know what they are answering.
Precisely. I do reccomend reading Goulds book, its very interesting to see how much it is assumed that you had to know for some of these early IQ tests. They were phrased/ drawn so badly.
Like on the SAT verbal, the test makers (I think Collegeboard) assumes one knows these words and should know these words. Sad thing, they teach a small subset of them in public schools and I never hear them in real life. However knowing words is a good thing. I hate it when I know what kind of word I need but have no idea what it is... or how to find it Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, thats the kind of thing. Knowledge of words is a different thing from intelligence. But my problem at work sometimes is that i have to shift down 3 gears and stop using words with many syllables. I used the word "homogeneity" on one bloke and he staarted slagging me off....
You know, it might be a good idea if we could start a thread where people post words that are useful in society without just being words that makes everyone go "wtf?" I mean, there are a lot of simple words I just do not know that most people know. I find myself constantly opening a new tab in Firefox and pasting the word in google just to look it up... and in many posts on SF. Makes me feel stupid Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Really? Last book I read that had words that I didnt know was "Foucoults Pendulum". But the problem is that i cant think of many words that are useful in general society that said general society will generally know the meaning of. I could start using a much more complex set of words and sentences, but in normal conversation that puts people off. Then words like homoegeneity, how often do you use them? how about: Plenitude supervened imploring integumented These are words from "winged victory", by V M Yeates, published in 1934. The last word was one I had to look up.
Stop making me feel stupid. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I guess it is time to sign up for "word of the day" at dictionary.com
What's sad about my situation is that an INTP is usually good with words. I know I can be pretty good at putting words together, the only thing is it helps to know the words. Usually I have to work around it by making my sentences very long so I can define the word I wish I could have used.
Sure, but if your main intake is from books published after about 1970, then you just aren't getting exposed to the full richness of the English language. Dumbing down is a real phenomena, although never quite as bad as some people want to make out. Just to add to the fun, the other words I had to look up from "winged Victory" were: phenkistoscopic thanatognomic matutinal titubating If it makes you feel any better, the author was a well educated poet, and therefore would have used far more words than were normal even at that time. (I think I am INTJ, if IRRC)
The only books I read before 1970 are generally math books. The newer books seem to appeal to those that paid attention in public schools. "Calculus for dummies" and "Statistics for the Utterly Confused." Most math books I own come from Dover, I think they are a great publishing company.
You mean the Dover that does reprints of books from the past 7 or 800 years? Yup, they are good, I have several of theirs already. I need a copy of statistics for the utterly confused, since, like half my chemsitry year group, I have trouble getting maths. The other half had no trouble at all, but the rest of us had great difficulties. WHich reminds me, with regards to IQ, given that you yourself seem to agree that different people are good at different things, trying to sum it all up into one number really doesnt make much sense, since the tests could be biased in terms of the number of questions that are of each type.
I think they usually split it up into verbal and spatial IQs, as Absane mentioned ... but I think their usefulness is limited. Maybe because I've only taken online tests. Same with Myers-Briggs; I keep on coming up INTP or INTJ (well ... INTJ once). When I read the description I thought bits of it were fairly accurate, but then I read the description of the other types and realised bits of them (especially types differing by only one letter) were fairly accurate too. Which didn't overly impress me. Maybe my expectations were too high.
