I.Q.

[Swordsman3003]

I you don't know your IQ, don't take this poll. And, don't do some stupid online thing, they are bogus. If you haven't taken an official test don't answer.

I have a strong feeling the people in this forum have fairly high intelligence levels.

[Ghastly]

Last official I.Q. test I took was back in the 80s in college. Pegged my I.Q. at 148. A rather mediocre genius.

[Aeridus]

I know my IQ is around 150, I've taken a few semi-official tests (graded by a human being, recognized by a fair number of the populace, available online but not of the bogus type).

Who the heck has the >180 IQ? I have some puzzles for you...

[Goddessmisca]

Lowest I've ever got was 120, higest was 160 something. Average is 144 so I put myself in that range. (I was in a program in elementary-highschool that required me to be tested every year and only the top 20 testors could remain in the program...unless their parents made a donation to the school then they kicked out one of the higher scorers anyway *bitter*)

[Squidflakes]

Last offical test was 179. One freaking point short! NOOOES!

[UgghTheCaveman]

Last test I took was part of the setup for a psych lab experiment where I volunteered in order to pick up badly needed extra credit.

Claimed mine was 158

Last one prior to that was administered by the Army, my record claims it set me at 156

School transcripts show the one given in 2nd grade [1979](which started me in that school district's gifted program) had me reading 182, and the one I took upon changing locations, in 1983, to GA, to "verify" that I still belonged in THEIR "gifted program" dropped that to 168.

I dunno if I lost that many IQ points through the process of being schooled (they say children's IQs drop as they age partially because of developing habits in HOW they think, and partially because the schooling they go through forces them to adapt particular types of thinking habits that prevent them from performing as well with certain types of problems given on IQ tests), but the last two, taken 14 years apart, are within 2 points of eachother, and I was repeatedly tested for the psych class, and actually landed an average that matched exactly what that one-time score for that experiment came out as.



What I want to know is this though: If I'm so damned smart (as it indicates), why did/do I have such issues making smart decisions or employing common sense, at times? And why is learning certain things such a fuckign chore to me, while I absorb trivialities without effort, and without any intention to?

[Toawa]

Because such tests only measure the tiniest fraction of intelligence; they cannot hope to take into account all of the external factors that may affect the reading (IE, basic knowledge, applied knowledge specific to certain questions, previous knowledge of the questions themselves, understanding what the questions ask for, cultural references/effects, thought processes/thought algorithms, spectrum presence/neurotypicality, etc.)

I don't think I've ever had an official IQ test; if I have I don't know about it.

[Unholy]

I dont think IQ tests are an accurate measurement of a persons intellegence at all, which is why I refuse to take them.

[Nithos]

I've never taken an IQ test, but I've always tested high in all the various apptitude tests I've taken (ASVAB, SAT, ACT, state testing, talent and gifted program, etc.). I doubt I'd do well on a test at the moment as mental state and thinking habits are a big part of it, and I haven't been in a real straining academic enviroment in awhile, and I've been focused on other things outside of it (well, I've learned a lot of history for work, and done a lot of research in that regard, but that's only memorization and mental indexing, and oregon terrirtory history rarely ends up on intelligence tests ).

Another difficulty in testing intelligence is that it's like physical condition - someone who's not testing well at the moment may just be out of practice at the moment the test is taken, it's not a steady state thing, it varies in a lifetime as you stretch your mind or muscles more or less over the weeks and years.

[Swordsman3003]

I was tested back when I was 11, nearly 5 years ago. I tested between 190-220 (at that range the proctor has to just start estimating.)

I'll try to explain a little bit about the phenomenon of being apparently one of the smartest people, but also seeming to be retarded in other ways.

What I mean is, some of you are very smart, but perform poorly in school. Others perform incredibly well in school, but are unable to do simple tasks (me).

The concept of intelligence has a lot to do with the "hard wiring" of your brain. For example, those with exception visual-spatial capabilities can interpret, understand, re-create, and manipulate images and objects in real life and in their heads from an early age, which can take years to "train" someone else to do. Likewise, some people can learn to read at two, but find math impossible to understand.

A lot has to do with your upbringing, not intelligence, but your percieved intelligence.

Contrary to popular understand, knowing a lot of information in completely unrelated to intelligence. A good memory (something I do not have) is definately not a prerequsite, and as a matter of fact some studies show a powerful ability to memorize is a sign of an above average but not gifted IQ (around 120).

A brain is a very tempermental thing. Sometime I can recite a story almost verbatim, other times I cannot remember what I've just read. I'm sure you all experiance this, just some more than others. Sometimes I feel like an old person, because I often walk into a room and forget why I came there, or try to throw away dirty socks, or put my empty milk glass in a closet.

I am 15 (16 on april 27) and have been going to college for 4 years almost. I took my first class at 12, when the college placement test admisitered by my local community college placed my in 3 year math (this was with one year of middle and one year of highschool).

I can't remember "factoids" but I certainly remember everything I've ever read very well.

I've been somewhat isolated from my age peers throughout my life, but I prefer it that way. I'll get back to this when I read some more posts.

PS: On the validity of IQ tests.

Yeah, there are some problems. But IQ, sometimes called G I think, is the best measure we have. However, the test needs updating (I once missed a question because I was unable to identify a 1950's phone.)

[Nithos]

Another thing about intelligence is that it's impossible to seperate out the influance of emotions, moods, hormones, stress, and other aspects of real life that can drain away mental resources. Earlier in life when your brain's still developing, still flexable, and not so concerned about work and rent, it's a little easier to bring your best to the test. Or, another example, when you're in circumstances where the girl with the really cute ass is taking her test in the row ahead of you, it's a little harder to do long division in your head, especially when you're still thinking mulitplication

[Dudegirl]

I'm really not sure what it is, but I'm sure it's somewhere above 100.

[Aeridus]

I do know that I'm excellent at anything that doesn't require prior knowledge, per se. The things that do require prior knowledge but which are more of the "essence" type (don't have to remember the names of terms) I'm also great at. I'm just not quite as good at keeping a ton of words straight is all.

I love my imagination, I can literally picture any person that I'm remotely familiar with, and make them say and do whatever I want. Like, just now I randomly thought of Ghastly, smile and all, whipping out his cock and masturbating on stage during a performance.

[Honor]

First... The term "Official IQ Test" should be viewed with open suspicion. There is no international governing body of IQ tests, only a loose academic standard... There are good and bad IQ tests, responsible and irresponsible ones. But no official ones.

And Toawa... c'mon dude.

Because such tests only measure the tiniest fraction of intelligence;

You just -know- I'm gonna take issue with a big, grossly inaccurate blanket like that, right? "tiniest fraction"?? Give. Me. A break.

While we obviously don't know (and can't know) true and accurate percentages in this stuff down to the nth decimal point (or, perhaps, even the 'ones' digit), what we have observed and learned from administering and taking millions and millions of fairly good, fairly modern IQ tests over the course of about a hundred years, that it is pretty galactically obvious that a good, solid IQ test score is well over, say, 50% effective at measuring a person's ability to gain and effectively use knowledge and skills... Which, remarkably enough, is what "intelligence" means.

I use 50% as a shot in the dark because a) it's obviously at least that high, and b) "half" is so not "the tiniest fraction".

Yes, we know now that there are a whole lot of other things out there to be measured. Emotional stability, sense of space, creativity, empathy & 'natural' communication... Whatever. Worth studying and measuing? Absolutely. Does an IQ test measure them? Nope. Does that mean IQ tests are bad and invalid? No more than yardsticks are bad and invalid because they don't measure temperature or barometric pressure.

...they cannot hope to take into account all of the external factors that may affect the reading (IE, basic knowledge, applied knowledge specific to certain questions, previous knowledge of the questions themselves, understanding what the questions ask for, cultural references/effects, thought processes/thought algorithms, spectrum presence/neurotypicality, etc.)

Great fun, but largely invalid. While the inherant sloppiness of language is probably the second largest hurdle to accurate measurement of IQ, it's a problem that blurs the lower end of the scale, not the higher. If someone is good at language, but the test is in the wrong one, then it's not a valid test of IQ for that person... If a person can't do well at an IQ test because they're not good at language... *whispers* ...they might not actually be all that smart anyway.

Besides... If we carry out the objection even as far as you seem to want to in your post, we quickly get to a point where we can't test or measure anything. How fast can Johnny run? Well, we can't know. There's no way to account for all the minute fluctuations in atmospheric wind, air resistance, surface texture of the track, or even whether poor Johnny understands exactly and precicely what we mean when we say "Run to that line as fast as you can, you maroon!"

A good, sound IQ test is an excellent measure of logical function and a person's raw capability to the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. If the test is good, it could probably be considered to be accurate to within... 20 points or so (?), for a one time thing. It's not a measure of knowledge, and should contain no knowledge specific questions. As noted above, since we tend to communicate with language, that poses a problem, and said problems are to be minimized as much as possible.

When I 'miss' a question on an IQ test, it's usually (i.e: more than 50% of the time) a matter of a bad question, and I usually argue it. One test asked a similarity question, listing a spoon as the subject and a shovel, a fork, a screwdriver, and something else as the choices. The test writers decided that the spoon was most like the shovel... I decided a) it was a crap question, because the differences and similarities were pretty subjective, and b) it was more like the fork, sharing several more points of similarity.

Oddly, the people administering the test are rarely amused when I have one of these... *cough* discussions at the testing place. Unless it's being done in an academic setting, like a university, in the course of the study of intelligence itself. I have a good record for university professors agreeing with me when I bring up one of these points.

Anyway. I've taken scads of them. Scores range from the mid hundreds to the mid two hundreds with the averages falling right around 200. The highest was around 260-270 and thus probably not all that accurate.

My lowest was 168, and I was livid... Particularly when the administrator looked sheepishly at me and said "Well it only goes to 170." That was the test with the shovel. Hence the 168. Boneheads. (wow... my pulse actually went up thinking about that, and I felt my face get warm. there's something seriously wrong with me.)

The ASVAB, as far as that goes, was a 'perfect' score, according to the information I was given (yes, I even dug around there. "99" seemed suspicious to me, seeing as it had 1 digit less than the test scores I am accustomed to. It's set up in such a way as to be impossible to complete with every answer "correct", though, and measures far too much specific knowledge to be a really good "IQ" test, but it is an excellent general aptitude test.)

[Honor]

Or, another example, when you're in circumstances where the girl with the really cute ass is taking her test in the row ahead of you, it's a little harder to do long division in your head, especially when you're still thinking mulitplication

I was just about to jump and say "there should be no long division on an IQ test!" until I got the (rather good) joke.

[Sweet or Sour]

You may not be convinced so easily that a score of far less than 100 is not completely disabling, but I assure you that, given a quiet room to concentrate in, I can go several hours without needing rescuing from near dearth by asphyxiation due to aspirating large quantities of my own saliva. I can even construct a somewhat coherent sentence if the words involved are sufficiently simple, and the quantity of symbols required to represent them is small.

Do believe the score on the IQ test that my overly proud parents forced their young child into taking so that they can feel they have a smart bit of legacy, ranked me at 98, an obviously low number. To be honest though, when taking the test, I looked around the room a bit and it all looked so false to me, the expressions on the faces of those administering the test, and on those taking it. To go in and take a test that I had been built up to for some time, and thought it was outright silly all along the way, especially considering the test had absolutely no purpose [it was not for some sort of admission, no special school, nothing], besides that stated above, I decided at that young age, looking down on it that something is amiss. The test seemed simple, this was either a trick, or a joke, and in either case it was deserving of no more a legitimate response than any other poorly planned hoax. I gave it the answers I felt the test deserved, even if they were not the answers the test requested, and decided to have a bit of fun with it. Needless to say, those who graded it were not as amused with the joke as I was at the time. My parents also seemed to miss the irony entirely. In any case, despite having taken a single other test since then [one that I believe to be ridiculously inaccurate, but that is besides the point], the 98 score is the one that I carry and answer with when people discuss IQ tests, for various reasons, including the sliver of funny that I can still manage to express after having my sense of humor completely demolished.

Normally I do not tell stories about myself, but recently I've been acting strangely.

Oh, and as of who had the 180+ [initially], it should have been pretty easy to suspect who it was, as this poll likely would not have been made [or at least not formatted as it was] otherwise.

[Wilmo]

I've found motivation to be a larger factor than intelligence when it comes to happiness/success/education/etc.

also, there are too many types of intelligence that it seems unlikely to me that a single number can accurately reprisent someone's aptitude at everything. Not to mention that as one gets older, they tend to change rather significantly, so an IQ test that you took at the age of 12 (my 1 and only IQ test) will most likely not be an accurate reprisentation my current aptitude.

Also, keep in mind that you CAN make yourself sharper. By constantly challenging your mind, you can most assuredly stay ahead of the game.

The reverse is also true, all I've done since starting my current job is sit around titrating/doing paperwork, and I can almost feel my brain wasting away to nothing more than a useless sack of amino-acids.

[Honor]

yeah... that's a lot of the problem... not understanding the nature of "intelligence" or the nature of "IQ tests" or what they measure.

IQ is absolutely not a measure of:

• how happy you will be (emotional quotient, balance, and outlook, as well as environment are much more important)
• how successful you will be (both tenacity and social skills are far more important to financial and career success than is raw intelligence... though you do need -some- IQ.)
• whether you have common sense (which tends to rely more on experience and the ability to analyze and recall it)
• social success and/or how well you get along with people (face it... social interactions are rarely based on the most logical way to do things
• or even success at formal learning and education (which depends to a large degree on the luck of having a meathod of instruction available that meshes well with your learning style)

What it does measure, and well, is a raw capability to acquire and put to use knowledge and skills. Given the right means of instruction, for instance, you can teach almost anyone French... But, statistically speaking, if you just throw two people a French book and say "learn this", the person with the higher IQ will do better, so long as their interest is maintained.... Whether by natural or artificial means. If they lose interest (which people with high IQ's do, alarmingly easily) then all bets are off, and the more tenacious one will likely do best.

[Frombork!]

Assuming IQ works like golf, I'm beating all of you guys.

Seriously though, I don't have a clue. Here's hoping I'm a genuine raaay-tard.

[Frombork!]

IQ is absolutely not a measure of:

Fun facts about IQ correlations:

• If you have a high IQ you most likely a) got good grades in school, b) spent more years in post secondary education, and c) have above average job performance.
• If you have a high IQ you probably a) had parents of above average socioeconomic status, b) have poor social skills, and c) will marry someone with a high IQ.
• If you have a high IQ it is slightly more likely that you a) are Asian, and b) read Ghastly!