Katsuni
Priestess Of Syrinx
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2009
- Messages
- 1,238
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
- Enneagram
- 3w4?
Hate IQ tests because of this... there's no truly accurate way to test intelligence in the scale they claim.
Every single question is going to assume that yeu understand certain basic concepts, such as a base 10 mathematical system, that yeu know how to spell something, or whot certain words mean, and some of them get really stupid with 'trick' questions.
I usually catch trick questions easily, I can work complex math problems in my head, I'm able to learn virtually any musical instrument with unnatural speed DESPITE BEING TONE DEAF (don't ask, I don't know either), and I can make the most delicious cooking dishes off the top of my head with ease, or even more than hold my own in debates on the big questions of life, and pose previously unasked ones.
Give me a simple anagram and I'm screwed.
I can't spell worth crap to begin with, and trying to rearrange meaningless letters into a word is beyond my capabilities. Yes, I can learn languages with excessive speed as long as they're latin based, and can read most latin based languages well enough to get a basic understanding of whot's being said despite never having seen the language before... but I can't spell and anagrams will defeat me every time if they're more than 5 letters long, and even below that it's 50/50 at best.
I've taken a fair number of IQ tests, and over this have gotten scores ranging from about 100, to over 170. It depends pretty much solely upon which kind of questions are asked, and that certain determinations are assummed... actually the only one I've gotten less than 140 on was the official brittish survey, of which it kept referancing "x is to y, as n is to ?" but half the time it referanced words I didn't know.
The ones with time limits are even more pathetic... seriously yeu can have someone who's slow, but that's only because their mind is so analytical that they go through every single possibility one at a time to weigh each of them, they may get every single answer correct because they're brilliant, but their methodology may be very slow... and as such they'll score lower. Because they're dumb? No, because they were carefully evaluating all angles to make sure there weren't any trick questions. That's not stupid, that's being cautious.
The problem is that 'intelligence' is basically the ability for the mind to comprehend and process new information, and compare it against previous information acquired.
If yeu have a poor memory, or don't have any ease with memorizing arbitrary abstract information, then it's harder to compare the new information against the old. If yeu didn't have the old information in the first place then yeu can't make a measurement at all in the first place.
The speed of being able to make connections is ONE aspect of intelligence, but not always. There's far more than enough cases of the two being completely independant, such as the example I used above of the guy who went through every possibility's nuances. And then there's idiot savants, who can often process bizzare amounts of information with inhuman speed... but they don't know whot to do with it. Yeu could ask them to multiply togeather two 18 digit numbers, and they could do so faster than yeu could type them into a calculator with ease... ask them to spell their own name and they get baffled.
There's so many aspects to intelligence it's hard to keep track of it all, yeu can be "a culinary genius" when it comes to food... yet fail yeur math course, and still be heralded as a brillant cook. How many brilliant musical composers existed, yet didn't do so well in things that were not in the arts?
Einstein FAILED MATH.
True it was because he didn't understand the language one of the tests was in, though I'm not sure how that came about... but the fact stands, that supposedly the smartest person in our lifetime in PHYSICS, a maths heavy subject... failed math... is just further proof that it's not as directly related as we may think.
Keep in mind there's other aspects as well, for example, a male mind is far more likely to be capable of grasping objects in a 3d plane, and understanding their rotations about multiple axis at the same time. There's females who can do the same thing (I passed perfectly on a test of this type myself as proof) but it's exceedingly rare. Does this make women stupid? Uhm... no. It does mean that the brain may not neccesarily process information in the same way however for the genders, and then there's the individual basis which can make things even more complex.
So is there a 'true' way to measure intelligence reliably? No. Not even close. If yeu asked me a large number of mathematical questions, i'd get most of them correct, such as the 1,2,3 sequence made me think of several possibilities which may fit. N*2-(N/2.1) rounded would also come out to the same thing, as a 1,2,3,5. As we have no way of knowing how the previous numbers had been considered, we can't truly evaluate the ending value, because there could be multiple options. A famous example being "2+2 is 10... IN BASE 4!" from Portal. As such, the best yeu can do is try to guess whot the most likely situation is, or whot the creator "wants" yeu to think, in which case it becomes less a test of formal logic, and more informal intuition.
Since noone is truly able to think in all manners with equal skill, we're left with the bigger problem of how does this even matter? I mean yeu can test someone, but if yeu put all yeur effort into making only a single type of intelligence to be measured, then if yeu don't display those particular traits, yeu'll fail miserably, even if yeu're very adept in other ways. If however, yeu try to do the standard 'a little bit of everything', people who may excel in certain areas will look far less adept than they really are, while those who are kind of alright in alot of areas but not really great at anything may end up appearing far higher on the list than they really should be for any of the topics given.
Is scoring a 50% on 5 topics really mean yeu're as smart as someone who scored 25,25,50,50,100? Technically they average out to the same amount, but it's more than a little bit of a difference in terms of actual capability... it's blatantly obvious one of these individuals is "kind of alright" on a few topics, whereas the other one is brillant in their chosen field, but kind of not so great in fields that may be completely unrelated, and require a completely different mindset.
In any case... IQ tests suck, and they mean nothing.
As an aside, the common belief that 'good spelling means yeu're smart' is a LIE, since it revolves solely around memorization of arbitrary rules, and exceptions to rules, and the exceptions to the exceptions (english at least sucks). Learning an inuit language is even more ridiculous as it's pure 100% blind memorization, as none of the inuit languages are synthetic in origin... meaning they run into the neccesity for a new word? They just make one up on the spot, it has zero correlation to anything else, and doesn't mean anything. Latin based languages at least have a degree of synthesis to them so that each new word is carefully constructed to make sense to those surrounding them in meaning. In any case, it basically means that yeah, I know I can't spell well, but it doesn't make me an idiot. It just means I can't spell worth crap XD
Every single question is going to assume that yeu understand certain basic concepts, such as a base 10 mathematical system, that yeu know how to spell something, or whot certain words mean, and some of them get really stupid with 'trick' questions.
I usually catch trick questions easily, I can work complex math problems in my head, I'm able to learn virtually any musical instrument with unnatural speed DESPITE BEING TONE DEAF (don't ask, I don't know either), and I can make the most delicious cooking dishes off the top of my head with ease, or even more than hold my own in debates on the big questions of life, and pose previously unasked ones.
Give me a simple anagram and I'm screwed.
I can't spell worth crap to begin with, and trying to rearrange meaningless letters into a word is beyond my capabilities. Yes, I can learn languages with excessive speed as long as they're latin based, and can read most latin based languages well enough to get a basic understanding of whot's being said despite never having seen the language before... but I can't spell and anagrams will defeat me every time if they're more than 5 letters long, and even below that it's 50/50 at best.
I've taken a fair number of IQ tests, and over this have gotten scores ranging from about 100, to over 170. It depends pretty much solely upon which kind of questions are asked, and that certain determinations are assummed... actually the only one I've gotten less than 140 on was the official brittish survey, of which it kept referancing "x is to y, as n is to ?" but half the time it referanced words I didn't know.
The ones with time limits are even more pathetic... seriously yeu can have someone who's slow, but that's only because their mind is so analytical that they go through every single possibility one at a time to weigh each of them, they may get every single answer correct because they're brilliant, but their methodology may be very slow... and as such they'll score lower. Because they're dumb? No, because they were carefully evaluating all angles to make sure there weren't any trick questions. That's not stupid, that's being cautious.
The problem is that 'intelligence' is basically the ability for the mind to comprehend and process new information, and compare it against previous information acquired.
If yeu have a poor memory, or don't have any ease with memorizing arbitrary abstract information, then it's harder to compare the new information against the old. If yeu didn't have the old information in the first place then yeu can't make a measurement at all in the first place.
The speed of being able to make connections is ONE aspect of intelligence, but not always. There's far more than enough cases of the two being completely independant, such as the example I used above of the guy who went through every possibility's nuances. And then there's idiot savants, who can often process bizzare amounts of information with inhuman speed... but they don't know whot to do with it. Yeu could ask them to multiply togeather two 18 digit numbers, and they could do so faster than yeu could type them into a calculator with ease... ask them to spell their own name and they get baffled.
There's so many aspects to intelligence it's hard to keep track of it all, yeu can be "a culinary genius" when it comes to food... yet fail yeur math course, and still be heralded as a brillant cook. How many brilliant musical composers existed, yet didn't do so well in things that were not in the arts?
Einstein FAILED MATH.
True it was because he didn't understand the language one of the tests was in, though I'm not sure how that came about... but the fact stands, that supposedly the smartest person in our lifetime in PHYSICS, a maths heavy subject... failed math... is just further proof that it's not as directly related as we may think.
Keep in mind there's other aspects as well, for example, a male mind is far more likely to be capable of grasping objects in a 3d plane, and understanding their rotations about multiple axis at the same time. There's females who can do the same thing (I passed perfectly on a test of this type myself as proof) but it's exceedingly rare. Does this make women stupid? Uhm... no. It does mean that the brain may not neccesarily process information in the same way however for the genders, and then there's the individual basis which can make things even more complex.
So is there a 'true' way to measure intelligence reliably? No. Not even close. If yeu asked me a large number of mathematical questions, i'd get most of them correct, such as the 1,2,3 sequence made me think of several possibilities which may fit. N*2-(N/2.1) rounded would also come out to the same thing, as a 1,2,3,5. As we have no way of knowing how the previous numbers had been considered, we can't truly evaluate the ending value, because there could be multiple options. A famous example being "2+2 is 10... IN BASE 4!" from Portal. As such, the best yeu can do is try to guess whot the most likely situation is, or whot the creator "wants" yeu to think, in which case it becomes less a test of formal logic, and more informal intuition.
Since noone is truly able to think in all manners with equal skill, we're left with the bigger problem of how does this even matter? I mean yeu can test someone, but if yeu put all yeur effort into making only a single type of intelligence to be measured, then if yeu don't display those particular traits, yeu'll fail miserably, even if yeu're very adept in other ways. If however, yeu try to do the standard 'a little bit of everything', people who may excel in certain areas will look far less adept than they really are, while those who are kind of alright in alot of areas but not really great at anything may end up appearing far higher on the list than they really should be for any of the topics given.
Is scoring a 50% on 5 topics really mean yeu're as smart as someone who scored 25,25,50,50,100? Technically they average out to the same amount, but it's more than a little bit of a difference in terms of actual capability... it's blatantly obvious one of these individuals is "kind of alright" on a few topics, whereas the other one is brillant in their chosen field, but kind of not so great in fields that may be completely unrelated, and require a completely different mindset.
In any case... IQ tests suck, and they mean nothing.
As an aside, the common belief that 'good spelling means yeu're smart' is a LIE, since it revolves solely around memorization of arbitrary rules, and exceptions to rules, and the exceptions to the exceptions (english at least sucks). Learning an inuit language is even more ridiculous as it's pure 100% blind memorization, as none of the inuit languages are synthetic in origin... meaning they run into the neccesity for a new word? They just make one up on the spot, it has zero correlation to anything else, and doesn't mean anything. Latin based languages at least have a degree of synthesis to them so that each new word is carefully constructed to make sense to those surrounding them in meaning. In any case, it basically means that yeah, I know I can't spell well, but it doesn't make me an idiot. It just means I can't spell worth crap XD