Intelligence has nothing to do with IQ tests, it's a shame a lot of people don't realize this.

(I'm the living proof, I've always done well in IQ tests, and I'm as stoopid as you can get.)

Damn Spider pig

[quote:ed48fc5ff3="Katcal"]Intelligence has nothing to do with IQ tests, it's a shame a lot of people don't realize this.

(I'm the living proof, I've always done well in IQ tests, and I'm as stoopid as you can get.)[/quote:ed48fc5ff3]

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No! I would never have picked it

PhD Student: Research information sheet

There once was a man named Bruce
Who liked to sit on a spruce
He ate lots of chowder
And yelled at me louder:
"I'm talking to YOU, Mrs. Hughes!"
--> The Literary Genius: Mowgli

[quote:a4be7ec92d="spiky"][quote:a4be7ec92d="Katcal"]Intelligence has nothing to do with IQ tests, it's a shame a lot of people don't realize this.

(I'm the living proof, I've always done well in IQ tests, and I'm as stoopid as you can get.)[/quote:a4be7ec92d]

*Looks at post*
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No! I would never have picked it [/quote:a4be7ec92d]

Told ya... stoopid.

Damn Spider pig

Actually when reading that story I thought "Whoo-hoo!". I'm of Katcals opinion. I took one at the age of 15, and one of the tests was a kind of "Judge what is missing in this picture" - thing. There was a picture of a guy who had no eyebrows, which I mentioned. The tester turned the card around, looked at it and said slightly embarrassed: "Er, yes, its actually true, now that you say it... but that wasn't the point. He's not wearing a necktie with his suit, see?" I am probably not from a classical necktie family.

I still scored very well, but hold dear predjudices against the testability of intelligence. A lot of those tests are so designed for the well educated middle class child with at least one academic parent...
Not that I can't see that intelligence has t be educated, so to say. But I mean - things like the necktie question...
Or the vast amounts of foreign words that has been asked to test verbal skills...
All those tested kids who wouldn't be able to tell what mimicry is might still write great poems in their free time, or raps, or have been raised with a second language. Well, the tests actually share the faults of any standarized test, and lots of them can still be a helpful tool. But people put far too much weight on IQ tests. They don't belong in any permanent record, especially not that of a child, if you ask me.

And you can train on those tests, too. Our psychology teacher's daughter always scored 150 for that reason, and she was legendarily dumb. I mean, really Laurenesque dumb.

"Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kindischen Spiel." (Friedrich Schiller)

My mom won't tell us our (my brother and sister) IQ scores. She said that she didn't want it interfering with our potential. Nor did she want it used as an excuse. She's really smart like that. I, for one, would have lorded it over my older brother that I was smarter than him if my test score had been higher than his. He would, of course, used that excuse to be the shit out of me, but he had to find another one. Any excuse would do for him, whether it was that I looked at him wrong, was breathing in his vicinity, but that I woke up/was born was his biggest complaint. We get on well now, but I still think I scored higher than him. So ha.

Every fight is a food fight to a cannibal. - Demetri Martin

My mum tells me time and time again of when I was really little, like 4 or 5, and the teacher held up a card with a drawing of a tulip on it. She asked me what it was, I thought about it and said "I don't know". The teacher looked at my mum, rather alarmed, then back to me and said "this is a FLO-WER". I later explained to my mum that of course I knew it was a flower, I just couldn't remember the name of the type of flower, I was searching for the word "tulip" and didn't know it... So it's really just a question of asking the right question to get the right answer... people's brains don't all work the same, it doesn't mean that different is less good.

And yes, you can totally train for IQ tests, if you do an IQ test several times in a row with explanations after each test as to why the answers were what they were, you get a higher result each time. That's part of the reason why they are stupid, they don't judge intelligence, just people's ability to fit a "standard" way of thinking.

(forgive my spelling, I'm stoned, KK said so...)

Damn Spider pig

[quote:a23e88d57c="Katcal"]That's part of the reason why they are stupid, they don't judge intelligence, just people's ability to fit a "standard" way of thinking.)[/quote:a23e88d57c]And it's only non-standard people who can see that.
They had a real problem with me at school - I kept asking university level questions. Teachers kept telling me that I didn't need to know that, I just had to learn what they were putting on the board. What they couldn't get to fit into the square 'teacher hole' that had developed between their ears was that to ask such a level of question I obviously already knew what they were telling me to learn.

Then again I was the only one they came back and retested in the national reading and vocabulary tests. I found out from the English head the national education board couldn't believe that at 17 I had a reading age of 25. How did they think I could cheat on a vocab test standing in front of a panel?
And by the way I have nothing against the teaching profession, I just didn't enjoy the best experience having to educate myself despite the various African teaching systems.

Lateral alignment of the head and feet limits brain function

IQ tests are great for testing how good you are at IQ tests. That's all. I think everyone here knows that. There is no consensus on a definition of intelligence, and therefore no way of testing for it.

Just about everybody on this board was considered gifted in school, scored highly on IQ tests and could be said to be of above-average intelligence. We're still a very different bunch of people with very different talents.

Mrs G
The Garner who cares.

Hooray for us.

Thanks for putting up a board where we can all find sanctuary from the drivel of the world, and welcoming the intelligent so warmly.

Lateral alignment of the head and feet limits brain function

When I was a kid they gave me an IQ test at school. I scored fairly low on the performance portion of the test and fairly high on the verbal. They used those test results to try and convince my parents that I had some kind of learning disability and put me in special education classes.

I rather think the truth of the matter is that putting a puzzle test in front of a 7 year old is a good way to test their ability to do just enough to get you off their case.

I think your last point, Darkbane, is probably very true for a lot of youngsters. I'm sure it applied to me.

Dragon's Kingdom - Stop typing "alot" when you mean "a lot"! - Disappointed

[quote:4275966d10="Katcal"]My mum tells me time and time again of when I was really little, like 4 or 5, and the teacher held up a card with a drawing of a tulip on it. She asked me what it was, I thought about it and said "I don't know". The teacher looked at my mum, rather alarmed, then back to me and said "this is a FLO-WER". I later explained to my mum that of course I knew it was a flower, I just couldn't remember the name of the type of flower, I was searching for the word "tulip" and didn't know it)[/quote:4275966d10]

This isn't related to intelligence-testing, but I had sort of a similar experience:

When I was hospitalised for depression, after I was admitted to the emergency room, I had to walk through a whole bunch of different corridors and wings of the building, different floors, etc., before I got to a room where a doctor was going to assess my mental state.

The doctor said "Do you know where you are?" and I said "No." because I wasn't sure of the name of the hospital wing. Of course, he really just wanted to know if I was aware that I was in a hospital.

Cat Clash

A related incident occured with my brother...though people just thought it was increadibly sweet. As a child he was taken for a test where a woman asked him to draw a circle. WHich he did...only he preceeded to add two eyes, a nose and a mouth as well. The lady was in hysterics...Like I said...people just thought it was cute...

I agree though...most of these tests don't work...they can be used to certain extent but I think we can't rely only on them...

I'm a good test-taker.

However, at my job I had to learn about different learning styles, and I found out that I am a "reflector."

Basically, that is someone who takes in a whole bunch of information, goes off and analyses it for a while, then comes back with creative ways of looking at the situation and solving problems.

Despite the fact that I've taught myself to perform well on tests, a "reflector" would by definition tend to be a poor test-taker, since tests are meant to show that you can give the answer expected of you in as short a time as possible.

Cat Clash