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What Does IQ Really Measure?
sciencehabit writes "Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life: academic achievement, economic success, even greater health, and longevity. Is that because they are more intelligent? Not necessarily. New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test. And harnessing that motivation might be as important to later success as so-called native intelligence."
To the extent that repeat testing gives similar answers, IQ measures how you do on IQ tests.
I always thought it mainly measured the ability to solve problems.
I recommend Steven Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" for a thorough look at IQ tests over the ages and how that 99% of the time they are bogus.
Certainly there's a correlation between IQ and real intellect, but there's no causation between one and another one.
So, it's safe to say that IQ tests ... measure "IQ" (exactly these two letters) and nothing more.
Created by another monkey to rate you on a monkey scale.
What it really measures is pointless. Its only a made up monkey test.
I've always felt that the score from an IQ test was actually the real test. Reason being is that some people get a big score, think they're all that and a bag of chips, and let life beat them into the ground because they thought success was predestined. Other people get a low score, think they are stupid, and let life beat them into the ground because they thought failure was predestined. The most successful people, in my experience, see the score from an IQ test, say, "hmm, that's interesting," and then continue to try to do their best at whatever it is they want to do with their lives.
In other words, I feel that IQ tests are largely curiosities that are frequently harmful and only rarely actually useful.
Lets not even get started on the blatant testing demographic bias (target vs actual demographic/etc) that makes the scores skewed against people based on background.
TFA mentions that intelligence is connected to dedication and how interested you are in a subject. Well duh.
Anyone can learn something if they really want to.
Intelligence is, I think, about how quickly and how easy it is to understand something. I believe that the ability to understand something without (much) effort is the sign of intelligence.
In other words, I am stupid.
- "If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create."
Lemme be an iconoclast here for a moment.
So IQ doesn't measure intelligence. So what? If IQ score is, as claimed, highly correlated with success in life, and if it's measuring motivation and determination rather than intelligence, and if it's motivation that determines success in life, doesn't that make the IQ test pretty damned useful?
Who even knows what "native intelligence" means, anyway? If I've got a test that tells me whether someone understands problems, can find solutions to them, and is motivated enough to carry through, isn't that as useful a definition of "intelligence" as any?
Or to put it bluntly: of what use to anyone is a brilliant mind who doesn't give a shit?
Couldn't it also be that higher intelligence makes you more motivated? After all, we all like to go in and show something we do well in. If you suspect you're not really all that bright, you're not very motivated to have it confirmed. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." and all that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It measures IQ of course!
Your IQ must be in the (Celcius) room temperature range.
Can you get a high score on IQ tests on motivation alone?
It's a measure of your propensity and stupidity to buy into another form of elitism and exclusivity. Like the world doesn't have enough of those social partitioning devices already!
Granted this distinction may be useful, since the remedies (if any) for lack of motivation vs. lack "native intelligence" may be different - or maybe not. I suppose the assumption is that native intelligence is more genetically determined, whereas motivation is more determined by environment, but I find that questionable. Some people have exceptional drive and energy throughout life, even despite circumstances, and most of us don't.
I also take issue with the article:
Why? If IQ scores measure motivation as well as intelligence, then admissions based on IQ already do favor those who want to do the work.
On the upside, you got to post on Slashdot how really smart you are.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is a subject I've studied before. IQ means different things to different people. Looking over some major tests, I found several schools of thought:
1) Mental quickness and flexibility
2) Factual knowledge
3) Ability to do problem solving
4) Spatial recognition.
IQ is *supposed* to be a general measure of how "smart" someone is (general intelligence), but while it does seem true that general intelligence does exist (doctors can pick up new knowledge in unrelated fields faster than people in some low-level fields), generally the tests just measure specific intelligence.
For example, when trying to test for mental quickness, they might give a kid a jigsaw puzzle to solve (this is what they did on my test in 2nd grade, actually - I spent half my time trying to put it together in unusual ways). But a kid can be "smart" and still be bad at jigsaw puzzles. Since its a timed event, there's also a certain amount of luck involved in how well a kid scores. The difference between "gifted" and "normal" might just be the time span it takes an unlucky kid to try the wrong pieces before he randomly pulls the right piece.
Factual knowledge is also a very difficult to assess subject. I looked over the Titan test (http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/), which is supposed to identify the top 0.0000....01% most intelligent people on the planet. Ok, cool. But one of the answers was an analogy involving Kuru, the prion brain disease contracted by cannibals in Papua New Guinea. I think the test only allowed you to miss a few questions (out of 45) before it ruled you out of the cool kids club. But my objection is, how does knowing what Kuru is make you a smart person? You might just be a trivia buff. And how can you rule someone out for not knowing it? The potential knowledge space for humanity is so impossibly large, that the probability of knowing individual random tidbits of knowledge like that is correspondingly low. How do you differentiate between smart, super-smart, and super-duper-smart? I don't think that any IQ test can provide that level of resolution, really.
More unanswered questions:
Another problem is, of the four categories above, and others people have thought of, which do you assess on an IQ test, and how do you average them together?
Why do we assume that IQ follows a Gaussian distribution?
What role does linguistic fluency and creativity play into the assessment?
I'm not saying that IQ tests are bullshit, but I think people assign them too much value. When you can have the same person take five different IQ tests and get scored between 150 and 230 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant#Rise_to_fame_and_IQ_score), I think we could agree the person is "smart", but beyond that, I don't think tests really mean that much.
Ever since that stupid book "The Bell Curve", talking about IQ has been considered to be in bad taste, because to many it sounds like a step away from outright racism. And in general, society doesn't feel comfortable with discriminating between people based simply on native intelligence.
However, we are perfectly comfortable with rewarding people for effort, motivation and concentration. So if this is what IQ tests largely measure, it becomes politically OK for, say, an employer to use an IQ test as a part of an application screening. Pretty understandably, every employer will prefer employees capable of higher levels of effort, motivation and concentration (for a fixed reward).
So let's get away from thinking of the IQ test as an intelligence test and start thinking of it as a motivation/concentration test. That will make its relevance much broader.
I'm glad that they are identifying how much motivation is important in success compared to the numeric value you get on an IQ test.
I scored very highly on my IQ testing from an early age. I was able to coast through school achieving high marks and all the praise and benefits that entailed without putting almost any effort into it. Then I hit university and was completely bludgeoned by the fact I had to self-motivate to produce and that there was actual efforted required to succeed and I couldn't just pound out my assignments in 20 minutes and get back to playing computer games. That early engraining that success doesn't require work, along with significant mental illness has left me far less successful than the numbers say I should be. My general conclusion is that IQ is an interesting number but other than indicating how well you perform on a limited variety of tests it doesn't have much value.
did you take several different ACCREDITED IQ tests, or are you referring to online tests which are not all created equal?
1 + log(# of slashdot posts)
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
If a child isn't motivated to succeed then it won't really matter what their IQ score. They will never do well. They'd be a lot better off measuring impulse control.
- I've got bad karma because I won't parrot everyone else's opinion
IQ is a correlation to academic success. It is measuring some combination of "intelligence" (whatever that is because no one agrees on a definition) and motivation. However doing well at most IQ tests is skewed by being familiar with Western standardised testing which is overly represented in Western education systems.
I wish this had been more widely understood when I was a child as I was bought up on the cult of Intelligence* and have a severe lack of long-term motivation.
* And unfortunately standard Western schooling doesn't challenge many intelligent kids like me who coast through with minimal effort.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
But he did it anonymously, so how will he receive the credit??
In children, IQ measures mental age/chronological age. It's useful for assessing developmentally delayed or precocious children. In adults...your mileage may vary.
Almost. It's the intelligence modifier, not the intelligence quotient that matters.
Different tests use different standard deviations.
- "If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create."
And whether or not you are bored. I scored a 156 but was bored out of my mind and piddled around more than anything for the last hour or so. The problem with those kinds of tests is they are designed to aim straight for the middle of the bell curve so that one on the low end will be frustrated and give up, those on the high end will be bored shitless.
Perhaps we should have a very basic preliminary test, and then give one more designed around which part of the bell curve you appear to be on? After all if someone on the low end slaughters the test you could always give them the next one up and continue until you found the correct IQ, but as it is now frankly it is just irritating for those of us with brains and frustrating for those that are sucky at word problems.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
When my mom studied to become a psychologist she had to take the tests on a couple of test subjects before she could do them for real, so no I don't think they count legally but yes they were fully real, done correctly and were the ones usually used in official tests.
To the extent that repeat testing gives similar answers, IQ measures how you do on IQ tests.
Well it certainly does that; obviously that is the primary measure. But, it is an indicator of how well you do in real life situations that require intelligence. Many of the people on this board are in the top few percent and I'm sure they can all attest to how lots of folks who did "less well" on the test aren't so bright, make many suboptimal life decisions, etc. When it is experienced so commonly across the board it ceases to be an anecdote and is data. Heck, I did pretty well on the old SAT (which was an IQ test in the past). Others in my class did equally as well - and by and large they were the smart folks. Some who did poorly were the "not so smart" folks. Is an IQ test a perfect indicator? No. Is it a useful tool among other useful tools? Absolutely. (Heck, my score on the old IQ test based SAT got me into Mensa without a special Mensa test so it was good for something right there!)
What, exactly, is the scientific definition of "human intelligence"?
Here ya' go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence
IQ tests are supposed to measure the aspects of intelligence which aren't related to culture, experience or knowledge (i.e "abstract thought", "reasoning" and "problem solving") ... and how fast you are at those sort of tasks. Sudoku is a good example of this.
Yes you can (and should!) practice IQ tests to get better. When you plateau, that's your final score.
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I've lost some, about 8-10 actually
I got cancer when I was 7, was going to do the whole radiation and chemo thing, part of the research cohort I was enrolled in was measuring IQ and other abilities before and after cranial radiation and chemo.
Took Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities, Standard and Extended Battery four times, once right before the therapy, once a year after and then two years after that.
First two tests - 99.94th percentile, then after all the chemo and radiation, 99.63rd percentile. A fourth test 10 years after the first confirmed the 99.63rd percentile score.
My math was really hit hard by it, so were fine motor skills (measured at the same time as the IQ tests).
By the time I was done, after four years, they'd already taken a couple of the drugs and radiation out of the treatment rotation.
The problem with those kinds of tests is they are designed to aim straight for the middle of the bell curve
That's why if you're really smart, they make you take further IQ tests that are aimed progressively higher up. Answering interesting questions can eventually become an exercise in tedium though, so they have to spread it out.
Hah, I got 100.
Perfect score, bitches.
It measures test-taking ability under specific conditions.
No it doesn't.
(eg. A general knowledge quiz or spelling test both fall under that definition but they're the antithesis of IQ testing)
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Yes, I'm sure you only scored a paltry 156 because the test was so easy that you got bored.
Ugh, the indignity of taking something designed for normals.
Almost, an IQ test is the best way to tell how well you will do on an IQ test. Obviously, this will be self-evident to anyone who has taken an IQ test or looked up 'self-evident' in the dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-evident. Beyond the obvious, it is the quickest way to see if you can join Mensa (score 135 or better). As for everything else in life, the IQ test may tell you how big your blade is, but it will never tell you how sharp.
An IQ test measures the ability to solve IQ tests
IQ tests are highly sensitive to timing and setting. The time allowed on the online ones is often generous. Also the online ones are often not the offical standardized tests, but are instead a ploy meant to flatter you into buying whatever they are selling.
But there is such a thing in Palladium RPG. Expand your role playing mind.
I think it shows a reasonable standard deviation, given that the tests are all slightly different and almost certainly have different blind spots. Luck is also a factor. The tests all showed you to be above average, merely in variations thereof. If two had shown you to be a moron, three average, and one a genius there would be more cause for concern.
Also your post lacks a lot of details that could help explain the discrepancy. How many tests did you take? What was the spread? If you took three tests, two of which rated you "quite smart" and one of which rated you a genius, it's possible you got lucky on that one or the test happened to overstate the importance of something you're particularly good at. Conversely if one of them was notably lower than the others it might have a particular hole for subset of "intelligence" that you happen to be particularly good at, or you just got unlucky.
Relevant to the article we're discussing, how did your scored do as a function of time? Perhaps your early success caused to get bored and perform less well later. Perhaps your earlier mediocre performance caused you to try harder on later tests. Maybe you were just having a shitty day when you did poorly on the one test.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
If you can practice it to get better, isn't your performance on the test related you your experience? Who is to say that where you end up with experience is an accurate reflection of your overall intelligence, since people are often faced with novel challenges? Is it worthwhile to practice taking a test for the sake of the test itself? Is someone who enjoys spending their time this way actually smarter than someone who does not, or does the test simply rate them higher because of their personal preferences?
OK. I had a course in the theory of psychological testing, so I know the answer. IQ tests are designed to (and sometimes do) correlate with things such as success in school, general problem solving ability, occupational success in fields such as science, etc. To say that they measure “intelligence” is a very vague way of saying this. And, of course, the correlation may not be very strong in some cases because of the limitations of the tests, and the influence of other factors.
I'm pretty unmotivated, and I turned out to be a loser.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You're right. An IQ test is designed to measure things well near the norm and not so well away from the norm. That's because people who use IQ test are worried about accurately measuring most people and not worried about accurately measuring you. Once you're below 75, nobody much cares about your score other than the fact that it's below 80. Once you're above 125, nobody much cares other than that you're above 125. My parents didn't tell me my score because they thought it would be demotivational because I had a high score and wouldn't work hard because of it. Sorry Mom and Dad, I was smart enough to negotiate with my teachers to avoid work that I didn't want to do.
Back in the old days, when we didn't have "gifted and talented" programs, they didn't care what your score was as long as it wasn't too low. The teachers found out soon enough how much of a smart ass you were, and those annual "Iowa Basic" or "Stanford Standardized" tests told them that you were reading and doing math at a 12th grade level in 4th grade.
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Sounds to me like it is saying that those who try harder, do better.
I'm not sure there are many people who didn't expect this to be true, but I guess it's nice to have common sense verified.
To the extent that repeat testing gives similar answers, IQ measures how you do on IQ tests.
On the contrary, it measures whether you're going to get special ed. or join the "gifted and talented" program. I aggregate, they might measure how much money the school is going to get from the state for such things.
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The educational system caters to students who try, care, are awake, etc. The Onion New Network has more.
I take the test drunk and wearing my wife's glasses just to even things out for the rest of the people taking the test.
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New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test.
Sure, that makes sense. And they're partly a measure of how smart the child is. Probably something like a smart * motivated (with other factors thrown in) = IQ.
That "smart" is a particular kind of smart, too. Emotional intelligence is very important, but not covered by IQ tests.
I've got students who lament their lack of prowess. They have to work very hard for every A or B they earn and are discouraged by those who breeze by without any effort. I try to console them. I tell them that they are learning how to work hard, which is at least as important (possibly more so) than being 'smart'. I tell them I've seen 'smart' kids who never learned how to work hard and went nowhere in life. I tell them getting to work and solving a problem is more valuable to an employer than being able to solve a problem quicker, but not having the discipline or follow through to do so. Of course, some kids are both smart and hard working and my hat is off to them.
Bottom line: knowing how to work is a kind of smartness that is no less valuable than book smarts.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
In my 40 odd years in and out of Mensa I have taken a few IQ tests and met a lot of smart, capable people -- some of them in Mensa. Problem is that some of the brightest would never have passed a test because their intelligence was expressed in other ways than the things IQ tests measure. IQ tests demonstrate ability to solve certain types of problems -- this is a tiny subset of the skills needed to function effectively and creatively in the world. These tests are not a Krell brain power measure, although they are often represented as though they were. And of course, it makes perfect sense that if you are too bummed out about life, responding thoughtfully to the questions in an IQ test could be just too much -- and I am sure the converse is true as well. So this new revelation seems pretty obvious. But some incredible musicians and artists might not do too well, because their minds go elsewhere. And weird cases like Buckminster Fuller (who I met when he was chairman of international Mensa) might like Einstein be classified as failures before they found what interested them. And there are certainly lots of folks in these high IQ societies who are similarly dubious.
I wouldn't be too sure about that, if I were you!
There are 2 types of people in this world. Those who understand ternary and those who don't.
I did a regular official one (weschler or something like that scale), and it gave me an 85. Maybe it's because I'm lazy, all my teachers say I'm much better than 15 points above retarded.
Any comments made by the owner of this signature should be disregarded as irrelevant, uninformed, and idiotic.
...so is Wile E. Coyote's, but he never caught the Road Runner.
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And posts on Slashdot. ;)
If you can practice it to get better, isn't your performance on the test related you your experience?
Yeah, you could probably twist my words that way if you were motivated enough...
I meant "life experience", not "practice at doing IQ tests".
eg. Being widely traveled or having read a lot of books shouldn't give you any real advantage in an IQ test over somebody who hasn't.
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I didn't realize how smart I am. I took an IQ test and scored 100 percent!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Wyatt - I don't know what to say about being docked points for having cancer. But, you've got more to look forward to. You'll also be docked points for age, sooner or later.
I think one of the most closely held secrets among older people is the fact that we don't solve new problems as quickly as we could when we were young. We make up for it by applying old solutions to new problems, and hoping they work.
Hey - I wonder if I've stumbled over the real problem with politics? Let's get all the old bastards out of Washington!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
You're right. An IQ test is designed to measure things well near the norm and not so well away from the norm.
I don't think they're deliberately designed that way, it's just the way math works when curves are asymptotic (eg. a bell curve) - nothing you can do about it!
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What about the people who first solved it? What about those who do it blind folded? There are people who did just figure it out.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
I'd have to agree this whole motivation thing is wrong, I've got aptitude for certain things, things I see as obvious baffle others putting forth massively disproportional effort and very motivated to prove my answers wrong. In many respects I'm lazy, because if I work a full bore is just pisses off the people I work with. I was and average C student at all the other classes I didn't care for. My younger brother was a genius at science, he gave several of his teachers mental breakdowns, which really disturbed my parents at parent-teacher conference nights. He went to Cambridge, and I swear the only books he ever had in his room were a bunch of computer technical manuals I lent him. He was not motivated, he had natural aptitude, and he was good at it. His IQ is probably off the charts, and better than mine, I don't care, he has no common sense. It didn't motivate me to be better or smarter, just to be different and excel at something else.
It measures a very weird type of fast thinking and deep concentration as far as I'm concerned. My score is something like 152 yet over the years I've certainly have met people with lower scores and much smarter than me.
To be fair, it depends on the quality of the IQ test and how varied a sample of test you took. Many readily-available ones are wildly inaccurate. Even common IQ test aren't accurate above 140 or so. Different tests also use different conventions for things like what the standard deviation of IQ should be, so it's easily to get wildly varying results.
This guy lives next door to me. He probably wouldnt understand the questions on an IQ test much less get any right. He is also a home builder/contactor. He is like a damn idiot savant with a nail gun and wood. I can rank in the 150's pretty regular on IQ tests. My friend makes me look like a moron when I get him to help me building and framing my house. Who is smarter...well.. I guess that depends..
To some extent, only if you equivocate on the meaning of "experience". Ideally, no experience should factor in. Realistically, your familiarity with and comfort with IQ tests can factor in. What is not supposed to be measured is your prior life experiences with things that are not IQ tests. (Of course, no test is likely to succeed in this goal perfectly, but they do a fairly good job.)
"Kids who score higher on IQ tests will, on average, go on to do better in conventional measures of success in life..."
To the best of my knowledge, this only holds true within a couple of standard deviations from the "average". Prior studies have shown little correlation between very high IQ scores (say, Ïf >= 3) and standard measures of "success" in life. Some have even claimed a negative correlation.
Certainly we know of a few shining examples of same, but that does not a correlation make.
An IQ test predicts how well you will do on the next IQ test that you take. Period. A high IQ does not mean you have any manners, are an interesting person or even that you can use your brain. This is one of the most popular subjects for discussion in Mensa. Invariably, each and every debate ends up with the same conclusion.
What, exactly, is the scientific definition of "human intelligence"?
It has absolutely nothing with the ability to take tests.
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Boiling the test down to a single number is sort of useless because that number will depend heavily on how they weight the individual sections that make up the test. For instance, in my case I was born with a moderate to severe motor skill deficiency(depending on how you measure it). I did insanely well on all the sections that didn't require a lot of motor skills, but absolutely bombed the puzzle section because of said motor skill deficiency. Ultimately I got a 128, which was 2 points shy of "gifted", but had they changed the weights of the sections it could have swung by a very large margin either way. They should at least break down the section scores, even if they still want to give you a single number as the "result" of the test.
Monstar L
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." — Albert Einstein IQ doesnt measure much.
This makes me think of when my boys were in grade school; I tried to come up with a word that would describe the single most important factor in their success. I would tell them that the reason they did poorly on a particular test isn't because they weren't smart enough, it was because they were sorely lacking that most precious of elements: G.A.S. = Give A Shit. They just didn't give enough of a shit to succeed - They may have been motivated enough to work hard (see how hard I'm working?), or to put in the time (see how long I've been sitting here?), but they just didn't care enough to think things through or to go back to the problems they fudged on to see if they could figure them out. There are external motivations and then there are internal motivations. If you are too focused on the external factors of impressing others then you most likely will miss the most important thing; Satisfying yourself by actually doing your very best weather or not someone is looking. Cheers, TJ
change it.
IQ was *kind* of a presence in my early life, as I got the impression it was a big deal to the adults. After having me take the test again a few weeks after the first, they wanted to put me in a special school; something that hadn't happened to my five older siblings. My mum turned it down saying she thought it was better I live a normal life - but I still was constantly hounded about the not living up to my potential... though no one ever bothered to explain how my potential was apparently restricted to school work.
Eventually I got the idea that your IQ was just how fast you learned compared to others your age. Our mum wouldn't tell us our exact IQ scores of course, the closest she came was telling me mine had been over 200. Which to teachers meant I should learn twice as much, but to me seemed better suited to learning the same amount in half the time - as I had no use for anything being taught beyond its ability to placate adults. Later I tried variations on that, like paying half as much attention, or being twice as high.
Intelligence is still just a convenience, like upper body strength or good eyesight. Anyone who's read the news for longer than a week (let alone a history book) can see that people are embarrassingly slow learners. Being a pretty smart human is like being a pretty fast tractor. I mean, human intelligence is great for solving the types of technical puzzles that lend themselves to that skill - but don't expect it to spare you from making most of the really dumb mistakes in the course of your life that you would have anyway.
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You mean the online tests on Facebook. That are suppose to make average Joe to seem really smart. Most of the online test make people seem smart to get their guard down and read and click on adds or give then you cell number to text spam you.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I couldn't possibly care less about an employee's motivation to do well on a test.
I do, however, care about an employee's motivation to do a job and do it well.
He contacted the click tracker company on the page.
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IQ tests measure modernity. The degree to which your thinking aligns with modern thought. Google " IQ modernity " to see articles on the topic. A New Yorker article some time ago gave a remarkable example of how things associate to us (knife goes with fork) whereas to a more primitive people knife goes with potato (something one cuts). Given the limited choices in a multiple choice test.
I'm sure the book 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell will be mentioned somewhere above. What he argues is that IQ measures analytical intelligence and not practical intelligence. They are like orthogonal axes. In order to succeed in society, you need to have a combination of both. An above-average intelligence (~120 IQ) coupled with high practical intelligence is the common denominator of successful people.
...of how well you can take tests. We took a psych class on testing and discovered an interesting thing. I took a series of tests--around ten of them. The ones where I answered with what I thought or knew to be the correct answer scored about 15-20 points lower than where I answered with what I thought the testers wanted.
I must be really smart. I can get the right answers even when they're wrong. AND I can psych out the test writers. AND I'm a genius, according to the psyched tests.
Another good reason to doubt whether IQ is meaningful is the Flynn effect, which is a long-term upward trend in IQ scores (which is swept under the rug by curving the tests downward). Nobody is really sure what the Flynn effect means, or what causes it, but it's such a huge effect that based on their IQ scores, average people from 1930 would be classified as dull or borderline retarded today. What it really suggests is that IQ testing is pseudoscience -- and that is exactly what a lot of psychometricians consider it to be.
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Took Woodcock-Johnson Tests...
When they told me they gave my daughter the "Woodcock-Johnson" I did a double take.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" points out that "genius" looks more like 10,000 hours of practice than any kind of "magic super neurons." Have their been studies that show IQ really does predict long term success?
Actually in "Outliers", Gladwell refers to a study that showed specifically that IQ does not predict long term success. If I recall, the study showed that on average those with above average IQ faired better than average, but those with higher IQs within that group did not do any better. So for this IQ showed some correlation with success, but only to a small degree, and very high IQs did not provide any additional advantage . I wish I had a copy of the book in front of me to point out the specific research.
Well excuse me for being bored! While the other kids were tinkering with their Chevy I was playing chess, and while they were struggling with basic math I was reprogramming the JHS PC lab to be a smart ass when you input the wrong data. why? Because I was B.O.R.E.D that's why!
I just got lucky that after my bike wreck I was given a tutor that accepted me as I was (Thanks Ms Edwards!) and finally got the school to accept that "integrating me with the other kids" was a BAD idea. The final straw came when the math class they made me set in on had a real asshole teacher that accused me of cheating simply because I had a calculator watch (which what geek in the 80s DIDN'T have that Casio?) which ticked Ms Edwards off so she drug in the principal and said "watch" and put a question up for both me and the math teacher while taking away my watch. while he was still struggling I blew threw it in a few moments and was leaning against the wall with my usual smirk.
When the principal asked how I was able to do that without showing the work and doing the steps I was like "Isn't it obvious? Its just basic math." and MS Edwards checked the numbers on my watch and showed them 100% correct. So what does the teacher do? Accuses me of hiding ANOTHER calc and wants to have me stripped searched! The principal just rolled his eyes and said "I think Ms Edwards is right, he is doing wonderful with his tutor and should remain there if he doesn't want to be here"
So yes it is completely possible to be smart and bored shitless at the cookie cutter crap they try to call testing nowadays. So instead of forcing me to waste time with useless crap Ms Edwards would have me grab a book from my mom's excellent Sci Fi collection and then explain to her the concepts and what I thought of them. Black holes, the grandfather paradox, she actually had me THINK instead of just regurgitate crap, and the history teacher she brought in was fricking brilliant, instead of trying to get me to spit out useless dates he challenged me to a game of "6 degrees" because he thought EVERYTHING could be connected to Woodstock. Never did manage to stump him, and it got me to really tear into every funky old history book I could get my hands on trying to beat him.
Sadly most likely now that we are broke thanks to two pointless wars and 2/3rds of the top 500 corps paying ZERO taxes for the last decade we will probably see funding for the best and brightest cut, so more cookie cutter crap that will simply bore the piss out of those with brains. Most schools simply don't know what to do with the really smart, so they just sit in the back and vegetate.
They finally forced me to go my last 2 years of HS, did they give me a challenging class? Nope the football coach took one look at the science heavy books I was reading and talked my teachers into signing off to give me straight As for the two years without me actually coming to class. Instead he sat me up in my own classroom and I taught the jocks on their study periods how to pass the tests so Johnny could keep throwing TDs for the team. At least it beat being bored or being accused of cheating if I was good at anything.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
IQ is highly correlated to conventional measures of success in life. My father's a psychologist and he says that IQ tests are instrumental in identifying learning problems (e.g. if you score high on an IQ test, but have poor grades, this can be an indicator that there's a deficiency that needs to be investigated) among other things.
I think the main problem is what it's called. "Intelligence Quotient" is an unfortunate vestige of the bygone era in which its standard testing methodology was devised. The average Joe (like the AC above) assumes that IQ is treated as a comprehensive, innate label of the inner workings of your brain and that's just not how it's treated today.
There's no helping the bottom 50% who insist that their strength of character, "street smarts", life experience, or wisdom makes IQ inaccurate.
It's not the bottom 50% saying that. A lot of them are happy where they are. It's the people in the 100-120 range that get riled about not being smart enough.
"The world need's ditch diggers too."
Oh come on! Really? This is like candy for grammar Nazis! Or is that Nazi's? ...
That's why if you're really smart, they make you take further IQ tests that are aimed progressively higher up.
Careful now, those might be trick tests.
I took a standardized test IQ in high school when I was having some trouble with Algebra II. I scored into the region where there's no more score adjustment for correct answers, so they asked me if I'd like to take a test more focused at the higher end. I said, "and what would that accomplish?" and they pretty much agreed that my math trouble wasn't due to being a moron and didn't make me take any more IQ tests (the problem turned out to be having gone to the local Catholic grammar school).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I bet you're a real treat at parties, so full of bonhomie and fraternal good will towards your fellow man.
So, do I.Q. tests measure intelligence? In roughly the same way your shirt size is a measure of how much you weigh. They are a rough gage, unless, of course, you define intelligence tautologically as being the thing an I.Q. test measures. Most I.Q. tests are composed of subtests that tap different abilities, considering intelligence to be a composite of many factors, of which the tests measure some small sampling.
The popular Wechsler intelligence scales categorize subtests into Performance I.Q. and Verbal I.Q. The former attempts to measure spontaneous thinking skills, while the latter is much more highly correlated with academic achievement. Thus, the split between PIQ and VIQ performance can give a psychologist a sense of an individual's academic striving vs. their innate mental ability. So motivation certainly plays a big role in the I.Q. score. The ideas in this "new research" mentioned in TFA don't sound terribly new.
Hundreds of studies have correlated I.Q. with success in academics and other aspects of life. So are geniuses predestined to success? Well... No, but if you're two standard deviations below average (100), it's as unlikely as Forrest Gump being a real person that you're going to make the history books. People with above average IQs simply have the ability others lack --whether they take advantage of it is up to them. (Oblig. car analogy: Properly maintained and driven, your Ferrari could win a race --your Ford Fiesta really couldn't.)
Ask me about my sig!
perhaps you would like to bounce it?
Just curious, were your parents involved in any of this? Could you have been moved to a different school/curriculum that would have been more of a challenge for you? Did they support your academic progress in any way? Your post makes it sound like it was you vs the system. If so, that is a shame.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
Sounds like he would really give a shit about parties where the likes of you attend.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
You mean the ones where people enjoy each other's company without discussing just how big their iq-peen is? Mayhap you're correct, sir.
When you've got a blade that's double as thick, you don't need to it be sharp for it to break other peoples' blades into shattered pieces.
they've only ever claimed to be anything like accurate in a small window, something like retarded 50 or less, below average 50-80, adverage 80-120, above adverage.120+
or there about (to board to look up anything to do with IQ test)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I've noticed that most I.Q. tests will do something stupid like ask questions that depend on knowledge as opposed to testing problem solving(IE: knowing words like banality). But I've also noticed that people tend to go overboard in knocking them and will state that they are useless. I disagree, idiots do not do well on decent I.Q. tests, if you scored 90 or less, then you are not very bright. It's probably not your fault, hopefully your looks will compensate. Some people have huge muscle mass while others know that we actually do use more than 10% of our brain capacity.
tringulation
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The Prometheus Society has a great article, The Outsiders, on two important studies of IQ, one by Lewis M. Terman, who provided the "Stanford" half of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, and the other by Leta S. Hollingworth, whose book on her findings is Children Above 180 IQ. Both studies were longitudinal and long-term, drawn from very large pools of subjects.
Conclusion? The smarter you are, the more likely you are to be maladjusted.
You're not getting much sympathy on this thread but I guess by now you are used to it.
Change a few names and places and we could have been twin brothers separated at birth... I spent all of my time in school bored out of my skull; from grammar school onwards, I could read and write by the time I started school, so you can imagine how it was.
If you are ever near Cancun, Mexico, drop me a line and I'll buy you a bear, at least we might have some intelligent conversation for a change...
Cheers
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
A general knowledge quiz measures general knowledge. A spelling quiz measures your spelling knowledge. IQ tests are specifically devoid of requirements for any learnable knowledge (other than common ability to read.)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It's often like this. Especially if you're from a country where "being normal" matters more than "being efficient". I can feel his pain, I was in the same shoes. I was bored in elementary school, to the point where I was constantly in trouble because, well, try to keep an 8 year old quiet when he's bored out of his mind while the rest of the class is still struggling and trying to solve those horribly difficult three digit multiplications...
My moment of pain was "multiplication tables between 10 and 20". You know, where they want you to learn the multiplication results of two digits 10a20 by heart. I realized that I'm faster (and have to do far less boring rote learning) if I just learn the primes and factor the rest to more sensible digits. 14*16 is after all just 2*2*2*2*2*7, and yes, it's faster (for me) to just hop down the doubles of 7 than to multiply 14 by 16. 7, 14, 28, 56, 112, 224, done. I'm sure a lot of people, here at least, will agree. Yes, I can duplicate most numbers with very little effort quickly (and no, I didn't calculate in base2 back then, it just came naturally).
You have NO idea what a lesson in frustration it was for me to get told that this is wrong and inefficient. I have a very hard time accepting to use a less efficient way to solve a problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To build on it, part of the theory here is that if you are too far from the norm, you can't fit in. If you are only moderately above the norm, you can fit in sufficiently to use your IQ to your advantage. Though most of Gladwell's texts are intended for Dilbertian management to read and then formulate vast policies on things they barely understand.
...but ability to solve IQ tests.
-- Sneer
"You are a product of your environment." --Clement Stone
Slashdot = Sarcasm
A bit off-topic, but couldn't resist after reading all these comments.
With test designed to be normal distributed around 100 with 15-16 SD, you'd expect less people having scores over 150. In fact I don't think i've ever seen ANYONE on the internet clayming his IQ to be below 100. I guess being able to type OTI really makes you more intelligent than half of the peoples. I really hope there is another explanation...
when I was told in no uncertain terms that Psych was a Science, IQ was thought to mean something. The more "enlightened" we have become, the less Psych looks ,like a Science and the less IQ actually measures. IQ tests are rarely (never?) culturally neutral, and repeat tests increase IQ in many cases. Personally I was measured to be 2SD above the mean whilst at Uni - that does not mean that I have been or will be any more successful (whatever success means btw) than my less "intelligent" friends and colleagues. IQ has never really measured anything useful imo, and probably never will.
"Debrox makes people stupid!"
Obligatory Note to Mods - all slashdot threads contain joke threads 3 layers deep, so watch out for the Joke-Alert Quotes.
Debrox makes you better able to hear what other people say, most of whom are less intelligent than you. :-)
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
Sudoku is a fairly tedious example of a constraint satisfiability problem. Once you've learned how to tackle these in the general case, it's easy. Until then, you either need to work out how to solve them, or you find them very hard. It's difficult to tell the difference between someone clever enough to work out how to solve this category of problem the first time he sees one, and someone who has already been taught how to solve them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Actually, it is quite correct. But it's also inefficient. Better is:
14 * 16 is (15 - 1) * (15 + 1) is 15^2 - 1^2 and since you probably have all the square numbers memorized anyway (yes, those tables ARE useful), so 15^2 - 1 = 225 - 1 = 224 comes easy :-)
the interesting thing when you ask someone who found the solution to an IQ question that you did not find is this:
When he explains how he got the answer, you say "damned, it was easy"
For example, if the question is:
how much is: 23234+34696+63453
213579, 121383, 121397, 121375, or 122435
the "high IQ guy" will compute 4+6+3=3, then pick 121383 as the right answer because it's the only one ending with a 3
And then, if you did not find the answer, now you feel really stupid
penis size.
Personally, I'm thrilled that you are intelligent, but then, I don't find intelligent people threatening. However, intelligence is not wisdom, nor is it a guarantee of being well adjusted or happy. It can become those things, though, once you apply your considerable problem solving ability to the problem of whining less and doing more. Arguing that it is your school's fault that you have/had academic problems because they "bored you" may even be true, but WTF does that matter? If you are as smart as you claim you are, apply some of that smartness to the problem of "beating the system" or "learning on your own". One of the joys of being really intelligent -- and well-adjusted as a human being -- is how it enables you to learn far more, far faster, than most people, how it enables you to do far more, far better than most people.
You sound as if you are still young and appallingly bitter. Let go of the bitterness, and apply yourself to doing something that uses all of your mind. The world is fully of challenges that even people with IQs of 156 will never exhaust, things that people with IQs of 180 won't exhaust. Mathematics. Physics. Writing. Inventing. Solving the problems of the world. Becoming wealthy. Bringing about World Peace. Making the world a better place on a more modest scale. Fixing the many problems with the school system. Becoming a teacher.
If you really are bright, recognize that there ain't nobody but you in charge of your life, especially now that you are out of school; you, far more than most people, are what you make yourself, not what others have made you. Read a bit of Maslow, shoot for self-actualization. When smart people are bored, they have nobody to blame for it but themselves even while they are still in high school. It has never been easier to learn.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
...and my scores have varied by 40 IQ. I know it's slightly off topic, but I have a hard time trusting something that can't decide if my IQ should be "quite smart" or "genius".
My kids had about the same variation. They seem to actually test the "compliance quotient" or "motivation quotient" or "obedience to authority quotient".
IF they rewarded kids by giving them their favorite M+Ms for each correct answer, I'm convinced at least my kids would gain 150 or so percentage points.
From my experience with standardized tests, in teenagers they mostly test the "rebelliousness quotient" and the "got a good nights sleep quotient".
Given to motivated adults whom actually care about the results, they MIGHT actually work, but as applied to anyone else they seem a waste of time.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's often like this. Especially if you're from a country where "being normal" matters more than "being efficient". I can feel his pain, I was in the same shoes. I was bored in elementary school, to the point where I was constantly in trouble because, well, try to keep an 8 year old quiet when he's bored out of his mind while the rest of the class is still struggling and trying to solve those horribly difficult three digit multiplications...
My moment of pain was "multiplication tables between 10 and 20". You know, where they want you to learn the multiplication results of two digits 10a20 by heart. I realized that I'm faster (and have to do far less boring rote learning) if I just learn the primes and factor the rest to more sensible digits. 14*16 is after all just 2*2*2*2*2*7, and yes, it's faster (for me) to just hop down the doubles of 7 than to multiply 14 by 16. 7, 14, 28, 56, 112, 224, done. I'm sure a lot of people, here at least, will agree. Yes, I can duplicate most numbers with very little effort quickly (and no, I didn't calculate in base2 back then, it just came naturally).
You have NO idea what a lesson in frustration it was for me to get told that this is wrong and inefficient. I have a very hard time accepting to use a less efficient way to solve a problem.
If you're that much of a fucking genius, you'd have the sense to play along with the official school method, and use your brilliant invention in your spare time to cure cancer, or something.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I think one of the most closely held secrets among older people is the fact that we don't solve new problems as quickly as we could when we were young. We make up for it by applying old solutions to new problems, and hoping they work.
That's hardly a secret.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
That's strange. My test was timed, and how quickly you finished also factored into your score. I would not trust any test that is not timed. Given enough time, many could find the answer to almost any riddle, puzzle, or problem.
Let's see how well you do on http://www.iqtest.com/. I scored a 139 and was not bored in the least, because I was timed. A very simple IQ test could theoretically be all basic math, but if it is timed, and the difference between a 120 and a 140 is 5 seconds, I doubt you will be yawning much. While nothing in the IQTest.com test is hard, it will require quick intuitive answers. The higher IQ people will find that the answers to these problems will just feel obvious, including complex math problems that quickly weed out the smart (quick answer) and the not so smart (stop, think, pencil, uh... uh...).
I consider the site accurate for me at least, as it matches very closely to tests I've taken in the past, scoring in the 135-145 range.
Parent:
And whether or not you are bored. I scored a 156 but was bored out of my mind and piddled around more than anything for the last hour or so.
I8-D
It's worth noting that the GP didn't claim that high IQ was useful for solving real world problems, but that school curricula organized around memorization(especially in mathematics) are actually pretty useless for people with strong reasoning skills. It's not an unreasonable point, really.
Sometimes you make some good points, but your Bio sounds like a recipe for "how to make a pretentious prick", and I think they succeeded. Maybe you hold all this in while you are helping your customers...
Cheap storage VM.
Being good or bad at taking tests only occurs with poorly written tests. Properly written tests will accurately measure what they are meant to measure, regardless of the test-taking skill of the participant.
Actually my parents were wonderful about the whole thing. My dad always said "If the boy says he needs it he probably does" so while the other kids had an Atari (I had the ColecoVision with the Atari add on, better system IMHO) I was spending my time on my VIC learning BASIC (which was how I fucked with the JHS computers, tee hee) and while other kids were read "Horton Hear A Who" I was read "Sci Fi's best new writers of 74" by mom (who to this day gets mobbed by the college girls that work in the library when she brings in books to donate, as they consider her THE person to go to for excellent Sci Fi/Fantasy/Horror books) and they both accepted the local schools were shit, filled with close minded little bigoted power mad douchenozzles for teacher, so they let me proceed at my own pace and learn what I liked.
While that did have a few downsides, such as my English grammar will always suck (but according to Ms Edwards it was simply the way my minds works, she said it was easy to see when I wrote anything as it was strictly noun verb. She said a novel written by me about a dog would be "I had a dog, he is dead now, I miss that dog" LOL!) and while I'm great at basic math I never cared for Algebra or Trig so didn't bother with it. But as I said my bike wreck saved my sanity from being jammed in that cookie cutter hell, so it all worked out.
Oh and for the assclown that said "I bet he didn't get invited to no parties herp derp" and most likely a jock I wager? Actually I was usually the first one to be invited along with my band as I've been playing bass since I was 14. I found that music is truly a universal language, that it didn't matter what IQ or social boundary exists between people, music is common to all feeling people. That and playing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" gets you a LOT of pussy.
So while he was probably looking for beer to sneak at 16 and hoping he might get to second base I was getting my socks knocked off nightly by a 32 year old brunette when I was 16. I would have run off to Cali with her after she got her PHD at 17 but dad refused to give me the title to my Grand Le mans sport, and I really loved that car. That Pontiac 455 may have sucked gas like a wino sucking hooch but I was making a good $200-$400 a weekend slapping down college boys in their Vettes drag racing. I thought my mom was gonna die laughing when I told that story to my new GF in front of her as Brenda said "I'd have had that bitch arrested! You were underage!" as that was EXACTLY what mom said to me all those years ago when I asked for the title!
So all in all I really can't complain. Would it have been better if I had had some sort of magnet school with teachers that were actually challenging? Maybe, but I've toured the south a half a dozen times with different bands (and am currently getting ready to lay down tracks in our new mini studio with my latest one) had more great sex than should be allowed, get to meet nice folks and help them with their PC problems (I even sold two new builds while tornadoes rolled overhead last night in the apt storm shelter) and have a wonderful Cherokee princess who loves to cook and just adores my family.
One final word: If you have children in the same boat? Home school them. When my sister found out soon after the birth of her second that she was terminal and that her husband had fallen to drugs she gave her two boys to me and my mom to raise. We tried traditional school until fifth grade, when a teacher actually had the balls to bring her bible into class and spend the ENTIRE class lecturing on "Godless heathens and Sodomites" (The oldest is Catholic, the youngest gay) so after telling that bitch exactly where she could shove her "good book" we home schooled the boys. The oldest is now on the Dean's list studying medicine, the youngest is still deciding whether to go CAD or be a chef. Both of them did SO much better once they were away from that damned sausage factory, it was like night and day. I just wished we would have sued the district out of exi
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The way most tests are constructed they measure predominantly one of the seven forms of intelligence, along with blood sugar, motivation, eyesight, literacy, practise at such tests, decisiveness and writing speed. My score varies with the form I am in. I see them as a hangover from the days of eugenics.
Great post.
This looks like a good place to add one of my favorite quotes:
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
-Calvin Coolidge
The challenge of encouraging and supporting quality home lives for our children is probably the greatest facing society today.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
Have you considered Mensa?
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
This isn't so much new, but has been the basis for numerous theories and ideas emerging in the field of psychology. Motivation is the foundation of everything we do. While IQ test aren't the most accurate measure of "intelligence" they are the best we have in the field right now. They are highly subjective and difficult to measure. However, they do measure cognitive ability and other broad facets of human processing which is very useful. As for the concept of "intelligence", do a quick search for Carrol Dwek. Her research on intelligence is ground breaking and insightful. She tests the idea that there are growth theories of intelligence and entity theories present among people. Entity theory states that people adopt the idea that intelligence is fixed; whereas growth theory postulates that people believe intelligence is malleable and can be built-upon. These theories have been put to the test where people are induced to be an entity theory or growth theory. They find that people with growth theories have more persistence, motivation to succeed, and learn things for the sake of learning them - not because they are persuaded by external rewards like money. This suggests that people can learn to be more intelligent through persistence. So, I could see IQ tests as measuring motivation.
I am, unfortunately, not quite as adapt at solving social problems, hence "playing along" just didn't cross my mind. Even back then I was convinced that, if I found a better solution to a problem, I should communicate it so others can benefit from it as well. That someone wants me to do it a certain way because he's required to make me do it a certain way did not (and still does not) make sense to me. Give me a reason to do it your way or I'll refuse to cooperate.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm reminded of taking an AI class in college. The first class the instructor described AI as the A version of whatever I is. Still the best description I've heard...
Actually, a high IQ can really be a PITA in everyday situations, as a lot of people here will probably agree. You constantly run into people who feel threatened by it, something I honestly can't understand. Do I feel threatened by my mechanic for his capability of making sense of the mess under the hood in my car?
(Just to somehow get a car analogy into this, you knew it had to come!)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There was this 'IQ test' on a dating site that I took for fun. It was full of questions that had no correct answer. But it also had questions that did have a 'correct' answer. They were tough enough that 'the ones with no correct answer' were impossible ( at least for my ) bullpuckie detector to be 100% sure of.
For example there'd be one of the: What number best completes this sequence? questions.
'best' is kind of fishy. You could pick any number for any of these questions right? I always wondered what made IQ test makers' idea of 'best' better than anyone elses.
Anyway, I decided to cheat. I found a 'table of known mathematical sequences' on the web and discovered that the sample sequence would list a 'known' series, except for one number off. Multiple-choice answers were all there to tempt you to pick one.
Anyway, by cheating ( wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise ) I got the score 100 - Perfectly Average.
...
I have been reading through the comments, and there does not seem to be much discussion about what IQ tests do well and what they do poorly. Generally there is an assertion that they are useful by some and an assertion that they are useless by others. As is typical in these cases, both sides are mostly wrong and only partially right.
Thinking about this, I believe there is one particular aspect of this discussion that needs more elaboration. Lets look at two ranges of the IQ test. The range from 80 to 120, and the range from 130 to 170. They are both 40 points apart and imply a wide difference in intelligence for those at the bottom vs those at the top of the range. However, the IQ test does much better (in my opinion and I suspect you can find independent literature to support this) on the range 80 to 120. Usually somebody with an IQ of 80 is not destined for a college degree and somebody with 120 has a good chance of finishing college. In this regard the test does fairly well. Whether it is actually measuring real mental talents of one type or another is a different issue.
Now, look at the range of 130 to 170. People with IQs of 170 are a bit different in nature to those who have 130. That seems fairly clear. But focused strengths in particular mental abilities are not well picked out and the IQ test seems to do a terrible job of predicting future grandmasters in chess, future professors at elite schools, future engaging storytellers, or even future great repositories of interesting trivia. Also when it comes to elite abilities, IQ tests at the high end of the range tend to discount the obsessive dedication that is required to become one of the best.
I think one of the issues is that IQ tests are good at finding deficiencies, places where somebody is lacking critical mental skills to learn what is required in our modern society, and does poorly at diagnosing elite mental talents. Those that praise the IQ test usually point out scenarios where the IQ test helped find people who needed additional resources to succeed. Those that criticize the IQ test tend to focus on how those with "genius IQs" tend not to necessarily do great acts that measure up to their numerical IQ score.
Take the relatively simple problem of determining potential skill at chess. Chess makes for a nice example because skill at chess is only somewhat coorelated with other mental abilities (making it possible to "isolate it" from other mental facets) and it is definitely measurable by competing with others. There is a clear cut state of "grandmaster" which all fairly accomplished chess players agree is a statement of real elite capability. It is (probably -- I am extrapolating on my own anecdotal experience) not hard to create a test to determine if somebody is going to play chess adequately and I suspect such a test is somewhat coorelated with an IQ test. A person with an IQ of 80 probably will never play chess that well, while a person with an IQ of 120 will likely learn to play the game adequately (counter examples are welcome). There are kids who clearly do not have much talent for the game and I doubt even focused study would help them. For them, learning how to mate with K and Q against K is a bit of a stretch.
But is it possible to create a test which will determine who is likely to be a future grandmaster (or even master) as compared to just playing "well"? I have recently been a chess coach for elementary school kids and there is one trait that I have determined that is coorelated with future ability. It is an obsessive interest in the game. I have kids who I thought were better natural talents, but they quickly fell behind those who made it their life mission to be better. In particular, I believe that an IQ test result of 170 is practically meaningless in predicting future great success in chess.
I use chess as an example, because I believe much the same can be said about any elite mental talent. Every time I hear debates about IQ, I ask myself, how well does it predict chess failure and how well does it predict elite chess success? I believe such a examination will produce results that are as valid as when the IQ test is used to predict future greatness in scientists and writers.
From wikipedia:
Practicing the test fits the definition of experience perfectly. I'm not twisting your words.
In a larger sense, this presents a problem for IQ tests because it disproves the notion that prior experience does not influence the results of the test. You could say "well other types of experience won't influence the result" but it would require a leap of faith. People who are experienced with solving puzzles and playing word games will have a better shot at getting a high IQ score regardless of whether or not they have worked the problems presented in whatever test they are taking.