IQ is only a measurement.
It shows your potential. There are a lot of fake IQ tests out there and the problem with many in the US is that they believe that numbers are facts. I mean, if you get an A on a test one day and a C on another day, what does that tell you?
It says that maybe you studied harder... or maybe you grasped the concepts of one aspect of the class easier than another. Maybe it means that you were having a bad day one of the tests.
The official IQ test simply gives you a rough idea of what you're capable of. Someone with a genius IQ isn't just going to be brilliant every second of every day. Often, people with high IQs simply look at the world a different way and sometimes find solutions and answers where others would have never thought of looking.
Take a look at Einstein. He did very poorly in school. Like some of the brighter kids, school sometimes doesn't engage their intellect because sometimes classes have to be slowed down for the kids who are either less intelligent or for the kids who are simply disruptors. This slow down tends to result in smarter kids to become bored and disinterested. The result... they do poorly in class.
In Massachusetts, they have a gifted program where the brighter students are put in classes with only other students of the same ilk. The result was that they bounced ideas off of each other, challenged one another
(Just like a sports team will work together to increase their physical capacity and support one another toward reaching goals)
In the end, the kids in that gifted program outscored all the other schools along the entire east coast!
High IQ means you have a potential... but if you don't exercise your brain, it really doesn't matter what your IQ is.
-Uncle Milo
IQ- Intelligence quotient, or meaningless number?
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UncleMilo
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UncleMilo
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Oh... one other thought.
There was a special on NOVA about IQ many years ago.
It mentioned how the higher a person's IQ, the less capacity that person had for social interaction. They had a chart and it was scaled on the IQ and the social capacity of people with said IQ.
Both were on the rise in the graph... up to IQ 139, it showed that a higher IQ also resulted in a greater capacity for interaction within the society...
then at 140, it suddenly started a drop off... a big and sudden drop...
The chart indicated that once people hit certain IQs, their view on the world is so out of synch with others that they have a harder time interacting with other people.
I have no idea if there has been any other study on this... and that NOVA special was about ten years ago.
However... it is an interesting theory. Seems to make some sense.
-Uncle Milo
There was a special on NOVA about IQ many years ago.
It mentioned how the higher a person's IQ, the less capacity that person had for social interaction. They had a chart and it was scaled on the IQ and the social capacity of people with said IQ.
Both were on the rise in the graph... up to IQ 139, it showed that a higher IQ also resulted in a greater capacity for interaction within the society...
then at 140, it suddenly started a drop off... a big and sudden drop...
The chart indicated that once people hit certain IQs, their view on the world is so out of synch with others that they have a harder time interacting with other people.
I have no idea if there has been any other study on this... and that NOVA special was about ten years ago.
However... it is an interesting theory. Seems to make some sense.
-Uncle Milo
There are two kinds of people in this world:
Those who divide people into two kinds of groups
and those who don't.
Those who divide people into two kinds of groups
and those who don't.
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Savia
- Chocolate teapot
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Some excellent posts on this topic, thanks all.
UncleMilo: Especially helpful stuff. it's true that it's currently in vogue on the internet (and, )-(ajin Koji, on the BBC program you mentioned- 'Test the Nation') to do IQ or similar 'intelligence tests'; from the sound of it, the US college-based ones have also spread. Few of these are anywhere near the already fuzzy reliability of a 'true' IQ test, and are based on lateral thinking or applied mathematics exercises.
Early in my life, I developed at an unusual pace: I skipped out the crawling stage of motion development almost entirely, going from being static to toddling in a small space of time. This is actually very bad for you; I had real balance and coordination problems later due to missing out this stage of 'calibrating' my body, and had to have extensive (not to mention bizarre) treatment.
When I was nearly six years old, I hadn't even begun to try to learn to read, write or take part in any school activities. I didn't really interact with my teachers or peers, and had behavioural problems. One specialist that my mother saw recommended that I be sent to a child psychologist for an IQ and learning ability examination, to determine whether I had some kind of learning difficulty, or whether I was suffering in the same way that those Milo describes were.
The test was specially designed for young children; without any ability to read or write, it was more based on pictorial things and being able to judge how I thought. I don't remember any of it myself, but my mother tells me that a sample test would be that the examiner would ask me to draw a simple figure of a man. The level of detail a child tries to add- hat, shoes, eyes, and so on- reflects logical rather than artistic thinking.
Anyway, the end result was that I was estimated at 145, and my mother was put into touch with MENSA, who were extremely helpful in getting me and my educational problems sorted. For instance, when I was set work (say, mathematics) that I knew the answer to, I could not be persuaded to write it down- I saw no reason to (I actually still do this now, to a lesser extent). My local state school couldn't adapt to my awkwardness, and eventually I had to go private.
Anyway, that's enough of my life story ^_^; i just wanted to share my experience of the testing process, and what it means to me, with you all.
UncleMilo: Especially helpful stuff. it's true that it's currently in vogue on the internet (and, )-(ajin Koji, on the BBC program you mentioned- 'Test the Nation') to do IQ or similar 'intelligence tests'; from the sound of it, the US college-based ones have also spread. Few of these are anywhere near the already fuzzy reliability of a 'true' IQ test, and are based on lateral thinking or applied mathematics exercises.
Early in my life, I developed at an unusual pace: I skipped out the crawling stage of motion development almost entirely, going from being static to toddling in a small space of time. This is actually very bad for you; I had real balance and coordination problems later due to missing out this stage of 'calibrating' my body, and had to have extensive (not to mention bizarre) treatment.
When I was nearly six years old, I hadn't even begun to try to learn to read, write or take part in any school activities. I didn't really interact with my teachers or peers, and had behavioural problems. One specialist that my mother saw recommended that I be sent to a child psychologist for an IQ and learning ability examination, to determine whether I had some kind of learning difficulty, or whether I was suffering in the same way that those Milo describes were.
The test was specially designed for young children; without any ability to read or write, it was more based on pictorial things and being able to judge how I thought. I don't remember any of it myself, but my mother tells me that a sample test would be that the examiner would ask me to draw a simple figure of a man. The level of detail a child tries to add- hat, shoes, eyes, and so on- reflects logical rather than artistic thinking.
Anyway, the end result was that I was estimated at 145, and my mother was put into touch with MENSA, who were extremely helpful in getting me and my educational problems sorted. For instance, when I was set work (say, mathematics) that I knew the answer to, I could not be persuaded to write it down- I saw no reason to (I actually still do this now, to a lesser extent). My local state school couldn't adapt to my awkwardness, and eventually I had to go private.
Anyway, that's enough of my life story ^_^; i just wanted to share my experience of the testing process, and what it means to me, with you all.
"A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him." - Man Ray
"Restrictions breed creativity." - Mark Rosewater
A Freudian slip is where you say one thing, but mean your mother.
"Restrictions breed creativity." - Mark Rosewater
A Freudian slip is where you say one thing, but mean your mother.
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Lyrs
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Otohiko
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Wow, very good thoughts, both UncleMilo and Savia.
With me, I only ever took one test couple of years back, just to try. As I thought, it was as inconclusive as I expected, so I never bothered again.
***
The boredom of early learners rings a bell especially - since I was HORRIFICALLY bored for my first few years of school. Well, as it happened, by some curse/blessing I learned to read by age 2 and a year before starting Grade 1 I already wrote my own stories and could multipli 6-digit numbers without using a calculator. Needless to say, the ABC's were the Beast of Boredom, as was everything else in primary school. However, by a twist of fate, I was not only not sent to a 'gifted' or whatever class, but rather to a 'a-tad-below-average class'. Why? In a school that had German language as its' specialty, a psychologist determined that I had no ability to learn languages whatsoever (by some arcane tests she conducted). Needless to say, that didn't help.
From that comes my distrusts of formal testing for talent/ability - not only was the psychologist obviously wrong, but it so happens I'm already studying my 4th language and am majoring in linguistics. Oh, the friggin irony!
So, I still don't really trust IQ or any standardized testing whatsoever. If I have to, I'll do it. If not - meh. I'd rather go do something productive/entertaining.
BTW my IQ is supposedly 146, which, according to that test, is one point short of 'borderline genius'. I think. That's how I remember it, anyways.
With me, I only ever took one test couple of years back, just to try. As I thought, it was as inconclusive as I expected, so I never bothered again.
***
The boredom of early learners rings a bell especially - since I was HORRIFICALLY bored for my first few years of school. Well, as it happened, by some curse/blessing I learned to read by age 2 and a year before starting Grade 1 I already wrote my own stories and could multipli 6-digit numbers without using a calculator. Needless to say, the ABC's were the Beast of Boredom, as was everything else in primary school. However, by a twist of fate, I was not only not sent to a 'gifted' or whatever class, but rather to a 'a-tad-below-average class'. Why? In a school that had German language as its' specialty, a psychologist determined that I had no ability to learn languages whatsoever (by some arcane tests she conducted). Needless to say, that didn't help.
From that comes my distrusts of formal testing for talent/ability - not only was the psychologist obviously wrong, but it so happens I'm already studying my 4th language and am majoring in linguistics. Oh, the friggin irony!
So, I still don't really trust IQ or any standardized testing whatsoever. If I have to, I'll do it. If not - meh. I'd rather go do something productive/entertaining.
BTW my IQ is supposedly 146, which, according to that test, is one point short of 'borderline genius'. I think. That's how I remember it, anyways.
The Birds are using humanity in order to throw something terrifying at this green pig. And then what happens to us all later, that’s simply not important to them…
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UncleMilo
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Savia
- Chocolate teapot
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)v(ajin Koji
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