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My IQ

blog.tanyakhovanova.com

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Re: My IQ

#141

Post by FaceKicker »

> But the biggest problem was that the idea of crossing the odd object out seems very strange to me in general. What is the odd object out in this list?

> Cow, hen, pig, sheep.

> The standard answer is supposed to be hen, as it is the only bird. But that is not the only possible correct answer. For example, pig is the only one whose meat is not kosher. And, look, sheep has five letters while the rest have three.

These types of questions irritate the theoretician in me as well, but to play devil's advocate a bit, are they really illegitimate questions? I would guess that your ability to correctly answer an "ambiguous" question like that measures your ability to effectively communicate with other humans, who regularly speak in ways that require the listener to resolve ambiguities that are at LEAST as severe as the farm animal question. If you think hard enough about it, sure, you can come up with a justification for any of the four answers (trivially, a cow is a cow and the other three choices are non-cows), but I would say that if you truly can't come up with the answer to that question that they "want" (barring any possible cultural reasons for not being able to do so), your intuition for pattern recognition could probably use some work.

This is not to defend IQ tests in general; I'm only arguing that ambiguous questions may measure something meaningful about your ability to learn or process information.

Re: My IQ

#142

Post by jalanco »

I was raised in an abusive middle class household. My parents were not well educated. When I took the ACT test in 1975, neither my parents nor I even knew what the hell it was. I made a 23. I went to a unremarkable Tier 4 college because my friend was going there. I paid for it working as an "auger boy" on a gravel drilling rig for a concrete company for five years. I failed college algebra twice. I was put on academic suspension, and somehow talked my way back in. I made a C in algebra, a C in trig, and then took calculus from a handicapped polio survivor named Mr. Treese (not a PhD) who could barely walk or speak clearly. He had zero patience for bullshit but for some reason he liked me. After taking three classes from Mr Treese he suggested that I should enter the Math dept's annual calculus contest (I was a geology major). I actually won the contest (and a $60 check!). Afterward, I never made a grade lower than an A, and eventually moved on to earn an MS in CS. Today I think he was probably the single most influential person in my life.

Today we have two daughters who are both completing science PhD's funded with fellowships. I paid for their undergraduate education at Tier 1 schools but they have done the rest on their own without loans. You can bet your life that they knew what an SAT test was when they took it. All their lives we've told them that they were definitely very smart but that it just doesn't matter, that IQ is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what you do, not how smart you are.

(I remembered this story because Mr Treese didn't care much for the idea that a "number series" problem has a "best" solution.)

Re: My IQ

#143

Post by pjscott »

jlazer wrote: post #130

Joining Mensa was the dumbest thing I ever did.

Did you actually join Mensa and find this to have been a terrible decision, or are you just looking to score points with a witty jab at an out-group?

(Or some third thing?)

Re: My IQ

#144

Post by biscarch »

mietek wrote: post #110
Shenglong wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be that she's overthinking--it could just be that the test-writers don't have as much education/intelligence. I use ad-hominems sparingly, so let me offer a specific example for the beginner's license test in Halifax, NS, Canada: In cold conditions, which of the following freeze before the others? 1. Bridges 2. Overpasses 3. Shaded Areas 4. All of the above I wasn't entirely sure what a "shaded area" was…

You would do well to assume the question isn't meant to be self-contradictory, and find a meaningful intepretation under this assumption. In this case, "before the others" could be extended to mean "before any other areas".

Actually the question should be rephrased to "Which of these can form precarious driving conditions in cold weather?" because that's what they actually want to know.

The problem as I see it is that the test-makers are trying to be overly clever and not ask the question they want the answer to. If I have to "extend" the language to say something it doesn't, the test maker has failed because the test question is the only source of truth.

This is the issue I see most often with these sorts of questions.

Re: My IQ

#145

Post by [deleted] »

mietek wrote: post #110
Shenglong wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be that she's overthinking--it could just be that the test-writers don't have as much education/intelligence. I use ad-hominems sparingly, so let me offer a specific example for the beginner's license test in Halifax, NS, Canada: In cold conditions, which of the following freeze before the others? 1. Bridges 2. Overpasses 3. Shaded Areas 4. All of the above I wasn't entirely sure what a "shaded area" was…

You would do well to assume the question isn't meant to be self-contradictory, and find a meaningful intepretation under this assumption. In this case, "before the others" could be extended to mean "before any other areas".

[deleted]

Re: My IQ

#146

Post by nickzoic »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #120
paisawalla wrote: post #2

Great insight. Regarding Mensa itself, or any claims to intellectual superiority: one of the big lessons of my life has been that being intelligent has no intrinsic value. If you are unable to manifest your intelligence in a way that can substantially (disproportionate to your effort) improve your life or the lives of others, then your mind doesn't matter. It has no impact in the world, and I am not the first person…

I find interesting the backlash against those who may have any interest in knowing their IQ, or god-forbid even feel good about it. What your anecdotes tell me is not that IQ itself is meaningless, but that success has a large factor of luck involved. It's a failing of our society that genuinely high IQ people are not out there working to improve the lot of mankind. This growing trend of derision for those who acknow…

Success contains a large factor of luck for sure, but I'd say also a large factor of something not measured by IQ tests.

Charisma? "Emotional Intelligence"? Mental flexibility? Gumption? Who knows.

Re: My IQ

#148

Post by pjscott »

freework wrote: post #78

IQ tests are just like anything else in life: If you practice enough, you will get good. If you are motivated enough to spend 10 hours a day practicing taking IQ tests, you will eventually get a high score. If you are motivated enough to practice the guitar 10 hours a day, you'll eventually become a guitar virtuoso. If you are motivated enough to spend 10 hours a day writing code, you'll eventually become a Rob Pike…

Since most people who take IQ tests are doing it just once, without preparation, I'm not sure I see the relevance of this claim.

Re: My IQ

#149

Post by nickzoic »

nacker wrote: post #63
rmc wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science has several rules of thumb, Occams Razor says that the simpliest is usually the more likely, and the assumption that the universe operates according to universal, consistant mathematical rules means that you should favour theories that match every other part of observable reality, the rule of thumb that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is like occam's razor and means, again, choose the simp…

Yes. The context that has to be taken into account includes the social context, ie. 'I am sitting in a room taking a test, I cannot request clarification of the question, the person who wrote this test may be far less intelligent than me, etc'. By making an effort to choose the possible answer that I perceive as the most boring and conformist, rather than one I might find brilliant, funny, novel, and suggestive of fu…

My 6yo daughter was upset because she couldn't understand the first clue in one of those kids' word puzzle books.

    "My first letter is in TOAST but not in ROAST".
Sometimes, dear daughter, you're just smarter than the guy who wrote the book.

Re: My IQ

#150

Post by jessedhillon »

gnosis wrote: post #104
paisawalla wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP was judging a person by his job, and implying that the person in question couldn't be a genius because he worked at a menial job. No, I was judging him by his accomplishments -- a measure by which your counterexamples shine, and the LSAT instructor falls down. All of the people you mention were successes in some way outside of their job, and they met my other criteria: they disproportionately advanced the stat…

"No, I was judging him by his accomplishments" What made you think your LSAT instructor's accomplishments were limited to his job titles? What do you know about this man apart from those two facts? Kafka and Van Gogh were completely unknown and unappreciated during their lifetimes. Kafka even burned 90% of his work before he died. There are countless other examples of people who were only discovered and appreciated a…

If you want to debate the merits of inferring accomplishment from a person's job, that's fine. To call that my main argument, and countering it with your sample size of three, is trolling.
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