I got 110 the first time and I had to rush through it on my lunch break; several answers were guesses based on my gut instincts; maybe I'd do better (or worse) if I'd taken the time to think about them. The thing about those patterns is that anyone can practice and train their brains to better solve them--they all follow a certain logic. I imagine it's possible to increase one's score considerably with said practice.
I was going to make a thread about quarter-life cognitive decline, but checked back here and figured I'd just post here instead.
That test is a Raven's matrices test, it measures pure fluid intelligence.
Fluid intelligence is basically IQ (and creativity), as opposed to crystallized intelligence, which is pretty much just memory for information. Numerous studies show that fluid intelligence drops after adolescence - you basically lose any creative abilities or capacity to innovate and problem solve and have good ideas but make up for it by amassing a lot of information.
There's also the depressingly fixed nature of intelligence: it's genetic. You are born superior or inferior, your worth and place on the human hierarchy is written in your genes. I personally can never quite let go of the dream of improving intelligence, of being a better person myself, but the studies are so uncertain there's no way to be sure if any effort is worth it. Unless it becomes possible to actually improve IQ, it remains fact that someone with an IQ of 105 is vastly inferior as a human being than someone with an IQ of 175. Less useful, less interesting, less competent, with a less meaningful life.
EDIT: As I keep reading, there really does seem to be empirical changes in performance when people are trained for IQ tests. But here are also identifiable intelligence genes. Is it worth it try to become "more intelligent", or is it a waste of time?