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© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy
A few years ago, I scored very well on an IQ test. You don't want to know how I did. No you don't. Well, OK. I got 160. But the test was a dream. It was perfect for me. It emphasized math skills. It was easy, for me. I should be about 140 or so. That's still pretty good.
Someone once said that IQ tests measure your ability to take IQ tests. I am good at taking tests.
Intelligence is a multidimensional collection of skills and talents (math, verbal, artistic, reasoning...). Most of these skills and talents cannot be measured, in any meaningful way, by numbers. And, an IQ test is supposed to take all of these measureless skills, and assign a one dimensional number to all of them, one number that measures all of your skills. Ridiculous. It makes little sense.
Well, it does make some sense. If I really am at 160, then maybe I am unusual. Maybe I should be accomplishing great things. Maybe I should have a few Ph.D.'s. But, besides being "world class" at checkers-by-mail, I have not accomplished much. So, I am a disappointment to myself, as well as to my mother, and a whole lineup of teachers.
Oh well.
An IQ test measures your mental age. That is the age that you seem to be, based on your mental skills. The IQ number is the mental age, divided by your actual age, times 100. If your mental age is the same as your actual age, if you are average, in other words, you will have an IQ of 100. Above 100 is above average. Below 100 is below average. But remember, there is inaccuracy in the tests. I was lucky that I took the right test. And I may have guessed on some of the questions, and lucked out. You may have misread this or that question. Maybe you were distracted.
I am 51 years old. I have a mental age of 81.6. Oh no!
Addendum #1:
Let's look at this question: "2 is to 4 as 4 is to: 16, 30, 8, 6." I have modified it slightly. I got this one wrong, by the way. My answer is 16. The book (a book about IQ tests) that I got this from says, "The answer is clearly 8." Well, to me the answer is clearly 16. To other people, the answer is clearly 6 (which was not one of the options in the book). I got this wrong, and I am not complaining. I am just trying to point out that some test questions are not as simple as the test composers meant them to be. 16 is clearly the right answer, as is 8, and also 6. 30 has no chance. You may be able to logically justify 30 somehow, but your reasoning will be so complicated that I doubt that you could convince anyone that you are right. But the other three are correct answers, two of which will be marked "wrong." My point is that not only are there problems with IQ tests (test composers are not perfect), but some of the questions will only be missed by people with higher intelligence! People with lower IQ's (and many with higher IQ's) will say 6, which will be marked "wrong." People with higher IQ's will say 8, which will be marked "right." And a few with higher IQ's will say 16, which will be marked "wrong."
Let me add that 8 really is the best answer, as pointed out by a reader of this page. 2:4 = 4:8 (or 2/4 = 4/8). This is the mathematical part of the test, and we must be dealing with proportions. But problems of that form, in tests, are often like this: Green is to grass as blue is to ... And the answer might be sky. So a person gets used to dealing with these in a nonproportional way, maybe even in the same test, and maybe even in the mathematical portion of the same test. And besides, just as I do not expect to see a Pythagorean equation typed out in words, I also do not expect to see a proportion typed out in words. 8 is right, and the somewhat quicker mind gets it wrong.
Let's look at another question, which may not be in any IQ test: "Complete this sequence: 1, 2, 3..." This is probably multiple choice. So they probably will not let you choose 5, which is the correct answer if this is one of the Fibonacci sequences. Only relatively intelligent people would choose 5, which will be marked "wrong," because 4 is the expected answer. If I am in the wrong frame of mind, I am afraid that I would say 5, and get it wrong. If I had more time, I would realize my mistake.
My examples are mathematical, as my brain is mathematical. But the above examples could have been verbal, visual, whatever. My point is that the questions ask you to make a connection. Unknown to the test composer, there may be secondary connections that only a higher IQ person may make. And these connections will be labeled "wrong." And the higher IQ person will see them as clearly "right."
People think that if you are not intentionally biased, you are not biased. But it should be obvious that if you accidentally compose a question that will be missed by an ethnic minority, then your question is biased, even if you are not. That is certainly possible with an IQ test, accidentally. If it takes you slightly longer to read every question, because you read Spanish better than you read English, you will score worse than other Americans. Also, some words have different meanings in different sub-cultures.
No test is perfectly accurate. Your measured IQ may be 120, plus or minus 10 (maybe). But you are told (or more likely, your teachers are told) that your IQ is 120. Maybe it is 130, maybe higher (and you had the flu or were fooled by one of the questions above). So, was the test of any value at all? Well, your teachers now know that you do not belong in a very slow class room. But they should be interested but skeptical of any exact score. Your score is inaccurate (as is my 160).
Addendum #2:
The gorilla KoKo (who uses sign language) got this answer wrong on a child's IQ test: When it rains, where should you go? Among the pictures were a house and a tree. The gorilla chose the tree. Wrong!
I received email which mentioned a test question that the writer's girlfriend had trouble with: Hoop is to court as goal post is to what? The correct answer was gridiron. The girl was from France and had never heard of a gridiron.