IQ Test Accuracy

[BlueScreen]

What a silly concept. Spelling and grammar aren't rocket sciences.

But they are part of doing well on IQ tests (along with actually getting the answer correct). Wouldn't want people to think he makes mistakes and has less imaginary quantity (IQ) than he has tested, God forbid, he falls under the entrance score

Also, I don't see the relevance to rocket science. You would hope that a rocket scientist could add numbers and rotate blocks, but I'd be hesitant to go anywhere near a rocket designed by a guy who specialises in timber and IQ tests.

 

[that's not my name]

Haha, that's pretty appauling.





There are many issues with IQ tests. But allow me to state one of them.

The fact that doing many IQ tests, trains you and thus artificially inflates your IQ by knowing the patterns and problemtypes before hand. It won't truely test your IQ unless you are faced with a new problem you've never encountered before and find/understand the problem quickly upon seeing it. That's the only way you'd access the parts of your brain that are relevant, and not just your memory banks.

To keep making relevant IQ tests, one has to come up with entirely different concepts to test peoples IQ's. And there is a limit to how much you can do that.


IQ is not a good measure of objective intelligence.

Even if you can train yourself, there is a limit to how much you will be able to learn by your own mental capacity. People have accounted for what you are talking about, which is why your IQ can change by up to a standard deviation.

 

[Crabs]

Kudos to [MENTION=1180]miss fortune[/MENTION] for adding the missing pictures back in the OP.

Hopefully, they won't disappear this time.

I had a brief Facebook discussion about IQ. My interlocutor was responding to my statement that people with high IQs can be physicists but those with low IQs can't be physicists. He told me not to put down people with low IQs because he knows this autistic guy who is great at building houses. I told him that I wasn't putting down anybody. But the distinction between his autistic friend with a low IQ and the physicist with the high IQ is that the physicist can also build houses, while his autistic friend is limited to building houses and can never be a physicist.

Did he specifically state that his autistic friend had a low IQ, meaning that he was on the low-functioning end of the spectrum? Many people on the high-functioning end have above average IQ's.

IQ tests have revealed an interesting distinction between men and women taking the tests. Women's scores will distribute around 100, while men's scores will distribute more widely, either higher or lower than 100. So there are more oddball males than there are oddball females.

Sex differences in intelligence - Wikipedia

"Differences have been reported, however, in specific areas such as mathematics and verbal measures. Also, the variability of male scores is greater than that of females, resulting in more males than females in the top and bottom of the IQ distribution."

That is an interesting factoid. I've heard that males generally score higher than females on spatial questions, as well.

 

[Mal12345]

But they are part of doing well on IQ tests (along with actually getting the answer correct). Wouldn't want people to think he makes mistakes and has less imaginary quantity (IQ) than he has tested, God forbid, he falls under the entrance score

Also, I don't see the relevance to rocket science. You would hope that a rocket scientist could add numbers and rotate blocks, but I'd be hesitant to go anywhere near a rocket designed by a guy who specialises in timber and IQ tests.

Your post is a bit too compact for me to respond to and contains errors and assumptions. I did say "physicists" and not "rocket scientist." I'm not sure if you're responding to my post or how you interpreted it.

 

[Mal12345]

Kudos to [MENTION=1180]miss fortune[/MENTION] for adding the missing pictures back in the OP.

Hopefully, they won't disappear this time.



Did he specifically state that his autistic friend had a low IQ, meaning that he was on the low-functioning end of the spectrum? Many people on the high-functioning end have above average IQ's.



That is an interesting factoid. I've heard that males generally score higher than females on spatial questions, as well.

It's a "factoid" that I've known about for 40 years. And it's a quite well-known "factoid." So you might want to do some reading on the subject of IQ so you don't miss out on any other "factoids."

 

[Crabs]

It's a "factoid" that I've known about for 40 years. And it's a quite well-known "factoid." So you might want to do some reading on the subject of IQ so you don't miss out on any other "factoids."

You seem to have taken offense to my use of the word factoid. I'll admit, I wasn't aware of the word's original definition, but have always heard it used more or less synonymously with "fact".


'Factoid' Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does

The Grammarist blog points out that in the U.S., at least, 'factoid’ is now almost exclusively used to mean ‘a brief interesting fact.’

The Difference Between a Fact and a Factoid

However, thanks in large part to CNN and the BBC in the 1980s/1990s to today including “factoids” in their news casts referring to trivial bits of factual information, there is now a second “official” definition of “factoid” as follows (from Merriam-Webster): “a briefly stated and usually trivial fact”

 

[Mal12345]

You seem to have taken offense to my use of the word factoid. I'll admit, I wasn't aware of the word's original definition, but have always heard it used more or less synonymously with "fact".


'Factoid' Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does

The Grammarist blog points out that in the U.S., at least, 'factoid’ is now almost exclusively used to mean ‘a brief interesting fact.’

The Difference Between a Fact and a Factoid

However, thanks in large part to CNN and the BBC in the 1980s/1990s to today including “factoids” in their news casts referring to trivial bits of factual information, there is now a second “official” definition of “factoid” as follows (from Merriam-Webster): “a briefly stated and usually trivial fact”

In this case it's not trivial. The difference in IQ factors in when regions of the brain between the sexes are compared in terms of size:
Study finds some significant differences in brains of men and women | Science | AAAS

 

[BlueScreen]

Your post is a bit too compact for me to respond to and contains errors and assumptions. I did say "physicists" and not "rocket scientist." I'm not sure if you're responding to my post or how you interpreted it.

Looking at which post I quoted is a good start

Also, I lives in realities world, not MENSAs world.

 

[Mal12345]

Looking at which post I quoted is a good start

Also, I lives in realities world, not MENSAs world.

I don't live in MENSAs [sic] world either. I don't even know what that means.

 

[Mal12345]

[MENTION=5522]BlueScreen[/MENTION] what about a Turing test makes you say that?

 

[Crabs]

From the Nikola Tesla Puzzle Collection

The directions for Power Supply 3:

Here is the grid:

After getting frustrated, I finally checked the back of the book. The grid shows there should be three batteries in the third column, but the answers show there are only two.

 

[lunalum]

I second the obvious problem here that if your test is not proofread, it is pretty much useless.

Other things that can render the results of an IQ test moot: any sort of disability that impacts communication at all, mental health status, tiredness, hunger, apathy, any sort of distraction....

Basically these tests can only begin to say something about an individual who is healthy, focused, energetic, driven to do well, and can fully communicate the fruits of their reasoning.

Even with that, currently IQ is comprised of 4 key domains: verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. It is very difficult to come up with a verbal reasoning test that is unbiased, so sometimes spatial reasoning is more focused on, but this this has the potential to misjudge the overall abilities of someone who has stellar verbal reasoning but sucks with spatial reasoning. As far as I'm concerned, the performance on the sub tests under the key domains can be very helpful and important to know, but the full scale IQ score derived from them is meaningless.

And who is to say that these four things are the only things that get at this nebulous concept we call intelligence? We need a lot more "proofreading" in that respect as well.

 

[lunalum]

Haha, that's pretty appauling.

There are many issues with IQ tests. But allow me to state one of them.

The fact that doing many IQ tests, trains you and thus artificially inflates your IQ by knowing the patterns and problemtypes before hand. It won't truely test your IQ unless you are faced with a new problem you've never encountered before and find/understand the problem quickly upon seeing it. That's the only way you'd access the parts of your brain that are relevant, and not just your memory banks.

To keep making relevant IQ tests, one has to come up with entirely different concepts to test peoples IQ's. And there is a limit to how much you can do that.

IQ is not a good measure of objective intelligence.

I am with you to some extent, but part of this lies on a premise that many in the field hold upon unquestioningly: that if you can practice and get better at a thing, then that thing is not intelligence. And IQ tests are designed with that in mind, where if someone after several times of taking the test can score a standard deviation higher than the first time, that is considered a design flaw of the test.

Intelligence is commonly defined as something along the lines as one's abilities regarding mental processing and reasoning. If this is all it is, then why TF can't this get any better with practice? I mean, clearly, if you are just asking the same questions over and over, then getting better may not mean much. But expecting people to not improve in an ability with practice is just so removed from reality that I just don't get why it is so tightly held on to still.

 

[Fluffywolf]

From the Nikola Tesla Puzzle Collection

The directions for Power Supply 3:

Here is the grid:

After getting frustrated, I finally checked the back of the book. The grid shows there should be three batteries in the third column, but the answers show there are only two.

If you add the supposed solutions on top and side then it requests 13 batteries to be placed on the top row and 12 on the left row. One would assume the use of 1 onstead of I is a typo and maybe shouldve been 0 but that is not the case either as the puzzle still wont solve, so the III simply can only be II.

 

[Mal12345]

I second the obvious problem here that if your test is not proofread, it is pretty much useless.

Other things that can render the results of an IQ test moot: any sort of disability that impacts communication at all, mental health status, tiredness, hunger, apathy, any sort of distraction....

Basically these tests can only begin to say something about an individual who is healthy, focused, energetic, driven to do well, and can fully communicate the fruits of their reasoning.

Even with that, currently IQ is comprised of 4 key domains: verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. It is very difficult to come up with a verbal reasoning test that is unbiased, so sometimes spatial reasoning is more focused on, but this this has the potential to misjudge the overall abilities of someone who has stellar verbal reasoning but sucks with spatial reasoning. As far as I'm concerned, the performance on the sub tests under the key domains can be very helpful and important to know, but the full scale IQ score derived from them is meaningless.

And who is to say that these four things are the only things that get at this nebulous concept we call intelligence? We need a lot more "proofreading" in that respect as well.

What do you think of that nebulous concept called emotional intelligence?

 

[LucieCat]

IQ tests can be an indicator of intelligence, but they fail to grasp the different ways in which a person can be intelligent. I had an IQ test done when I was about 13. And it apparantly indicated that I have a learning disability because I had very high scores on some sections and very low scores on others. But here's the thing, I don't have a learning disability because literally none of the people involved in my education at the time agreed and it had never been brought up before. Plus, my parents thought the guy was a quack. But an inaccuracy like that could lead to mislabeling and someone who doesn't actually have a learning disability utilizing the resources that people actually need.

Of course, I wouldn't have been offered any resources anyway at the time. The school refused to believe my actual problems (mostly anxiety) were problems. My parents had to pay separate for testing for a lot of things because the school refused to administer their free testing services because I got good grades consistently. My anxiety was even ignored when it was at it's worse. I'm actually surprised that I've come so far with coping with it, and that I'm not huddled in an anxious ball screaming in an institution somewhere. But that's besides the point.

A lot of measures of intelligence are faulty in general. My IQ was tested at above average (around 117, the administrator said I'd likely have an IQ of 123-125 when I fully matured, I'd like to think it's more like 128-129).

I have mentioned never being in the gifted program (because of aforementioned IQ and the lack of recognition that I was actually intelligent until my later teens in high school when seminar was basically a study hall and I disliked a big chunk of the people in it) to a few people who have been absolutely stunned. I'm no genius (though one of my best friends claims that I am), but I find that IQ fails to fully capture the full range of my mental capabilities. That or my terrible depth perception and lack ability to relate distances and detachment from the physical world throw the whole thing off.

Actually, what I just mentioned was the part of the IQ test that indicated a learning disability. A friend of mine has suggested that I might be dyslexic as some dyslexic people struggle with the same things (like differentiating left and right). This doesn't quite add up though because I've always been good with writing, reading, and interpreting spoken language. I feel like if I were dyslexic, these would not be such strengths.

I am fairly certain I do have dyspraxia though, which could also explain this. However, I was never officially diagnosed. It's not a very well-known condition where I'm from, and I only know about it because I was researching a condition I have known as hypotonia (low muscle tone) and trying to find out how I could have it without an accompanying disorder. Hypotonia is usually a symptom, not an independently occurring condition like the doctors seemed to think it was for me. Apparently, hypotonia correlates with dyspraxia (or it's official name which I can't remember, it's a developmental disorder).

 

[Poki]

I was at Barnes & Noble today and decided to try this Self-Scoring IQ Test designed by the Honorary International President of MENSA, Victor Serebriakoff. There are two tests comprised of verbal, mathematical and spacial questions. I didn't even bother to take the second test because the first one was so frustrating. It made me question how valid IQ testing really is. I thought I would solicit some feedback from the forum regarding a few of these conundrums.

Mistake #1 In the Example below, the third missile is clearly incorrect. (3+2) x 2 = 10, not 12.

Mistake #2 Here is a description of how this problem works:

The piles of blocks shown are solid. Any block without support is shown as such. Each diagram represents a pile of identical blocks. Write a number beside each letter in the column to show how many other blocks touch the block indicated by each letter. A whole face must touch.

We're looking at SA 33 here.

For A, I count one face, which is the edge of E.
For B, I count one face, which is the edge of B.
For C, I count three faces, one broad side of D, the edge of C, and the edge of B.
For D, I count two faces, one broad side of C, and the edge of D.
For E, I count two faces, the edge of E and the edge of one that isn't labeled between A and B.

According to the answers in the back of the book, however... (SA 33) A=2, B=2, C=3, D=3, E=3.

Am I misunderstanding something here? The directions clearly state that a whole face must touch.

Mistake #3 SA 35

For A, I count one face, the broad side of B.
For B, I count two faces, one broad side of A, and one broad side of an unidentified block.
For C, I count two faces, the edge of C against D and one broad side of an unidentified block below it.
For D, I count three faces, the edge of D against E, the edge of C, and the edge of an unidentified block.
For E, I count one face, the edge of D.

But according to the answers, A=4, B=4, C=5, D=4, E=2. Refer to the answer for SA 35 in the second image above.

Mistake #4

Here is a description of the problem.

In SA 37, each of the three cubes have three images on them, Cubes 1 and 2 share a common image, the two dots. The directions state that the same design does not appear on more than one cube, however, if the first and second cube are the same, we see a total of five different images. The directions clearly say that each cube has two blank faces so how can you have a six-sided cube with five images and two blank faces?

But according to the answers, the first and second cube are the same.

Mistake #5

SA 40 has five different cubes, four of which have three different images, and one of which has two images. There is a total of fourteen different images that we can see. None of the cubes can be the same because the directions state that each cube has two blank faces, therefore there must be five different cubes.

Yet again the answer in the back of the book states that there are three cubes. How can that be?

Mistake #6

My issue with these questions is one of semantics. Both questions use the word turn, which suggests a rotation, but in the second image, they apparently mean to flip. The example in the first image is correct, if you turn it clockwise, you get the image that is underlined. In the second image, however, the answer in the example they give is A, which would be correct if you FLIPPED the image upside down. But if you turn it upside down (as in rotate it), it would look more like C, except with the circle in the bottom right-hand corner instead of the bottom left.

What other tests have you taken that are in accurate?

 

[Crabs]

What other tests have you taken that are in accurate?

The Kobayashi Maru

 

[Metis]

Your scores on IQ tests might show something when compared against vastly different scores, but they don't mean much, if anything, when taken in a smaller frame of reference. I'm not sure what the jargon for that is. A score of 170 probably means something in contrast to a score of 80. However, a score of 130 vs a score of 160? I'm not sure about that. The smaller that discrepancy gets, the more likely it is that you could just as well have gotten a different score, if you'd taken the test on a different day, or if you'd just by chance thought of an answer to a problem quicker.

I'm saying this because I was good at taking IQ tests as a kid, but I know a lot of people who are much smarter than I am, and I know some of their IQ test scores. They were lower than mine were, but those people are sharp in ways that I'm not. IQ test scores are not something I put a lot of stock in. I was always a good test-taker, but that doesn't mean that I'm as good at others at thinking on my feet and applying knowledge. Those are skills that definitely demonstrate a person's intelligence, and they're not measured on IQ tests.

In the career training program I'm currently in, I do well on the tests. It's a lot harder when it comes to applying the skills learned to real life (simulated) situations. That takes all my effort. So while my classmates are studying for their written tests, I'm drilling myself over and over on physical skills sets, just so I can be competent at them when the time comes that I need to be able to perform.

 

[Jaq]

I was at Barnes & Noble today and decided to try this Self-Scoring IQ Test designed by the Honorary International President of MENSA, Victor Serebriakoff. There are two tests comprised of verbal, mathematical and spacial questions. I didn't even bother to take the second test because the first one was so frustrating. It made me question how valid IQ testing really is. I thought I would solicit some feedback from the forum regarding a few of these conundrums.

Mistake #1 In the Example below, the third missile is clearly incorrect. (3+2) x 2 = 10, not 12.

Mistake #2 Here is a description of how this problem works:

The piles of blocks shown are solid. Any block without support is shown as such. Each diagram represents a pile of identical blocks. Write a number beside each letter in the column to show how many other blocks touch the block indicated by each letter. A whole face must touch.

We're looking at SA 33 here.

For A, I count one face, which is the edge of E.
For B, I count one face, which is the edge of B.
For C, I count three faces, one broad side of D, the edge of C, and the edge of B.
For D, I count two faces, one broad side of C, and the edge of D.
For E, I count two faces, the edge of E and the edge of one that isn't labeled between A and B.

According to the answers in the back of the book, however... (SA 33) A=2, B=2, C=3, D=3, E=3.

Am I misunderstanding something here? The directions clearly state that a whole face must touch.

Mistake #3 SA 35

For A, I count one face, the broad side of B.
For B, I count two faces, one broad side of A, and one broad side of an unidentified block.
For C, I count two faces, the edge of C against D and one broad side of an unidentified block below it.
For D, I count three faces, the edge of D against E, the edge of C, and the edge of an unidentified block.
For E, I count one face, the edge of D.

But according to the answers, A=4, B=4, C=5, D=4, E=2. Refer to the answer for SA 35 in the second image above.

Mistake #4

Here is a description of the problem.

In SA 37, each of the three cubes have three images on them, Cubes 1 and 2 share a common image, the two dots. The directions state that the same design does not appear on more than one cube, however, if the first and second cube are the same, we see a total of five different images. The directions clearly say that each cube has two blank faces so how can you have a six-sided cube with five images and two blank faces?

But according to the answers, the first and second cube are the same.

Mistake #5

SA 40 has five different cubes, four of which have three different images, and one of which has two images. There is a total of fourteen different images that we can see. None of the cubes can be the same because the directions state that each cube has two blank faces, therefore there must be five different cubes.

Yet again the answer in the back of the book states that there are three cubes. How can that be?

Mistake #6

My issue with these questions is one of semantics. Both questions use the word turn, which suggests a rotation, but in the second image, they apparently mean to flip. The example in the first image is correct, if you turn it clockwise, you get the image that is underlined. In the second image, however, the answer in the example they give is A, which would be correct if you FLIPPED the image upside down. But if you turn it upside down (as in rotate it), it would look more like C, except with the circle in the bottom right-hand corner instead of the bottom left.

I find it impressive you went through this to point out the mistakes. Must be a testament of how much free time you have on your shoulders.