It's training, motivation, self-discipline and the rest that make people successful, not what wheels they have.
Sorry, but you gotta have the wheels to succeed at the highest levels.
Look at professional athletes (look to the NBA or NFL, for example, or in your case the EPL or Rugby Union). There are plenty of talented and motivated athletes in the world who's careers ended in college because they weren't big/fast/strong enough (i.e. the wheels they have weren't good enough).
Curved tests are only valid when trying to compare one person to another (or one group to another), which is exactly the point of the IQ test.
In public schools and colleges, though, it makes no sense. Education is not a competition. Students either meet the standards or the don't (on a continuum, but not a continuum based on what their peers around them are doing).
You can only be a "good test taker" if a test is poorly written. A properly written test measures to see if the objectives have been met, not whether or not you can be tricked into picking the right or wrong answer. A properly written test should be actually fairly easy if the material was taught correctly and the learners learned what was taught.
Our infatuation with writing hard tests and test scores in general is really stupid. Tests exist as a measurement to see if you actually learned what you were supposed to. It's not a badge of honor for us test writers to trick students, or create consistently low scores. If there are consistently low test scores, it could be the material isn't being taught, but most likely, it's a lousy test.
I tend to think that most people in the world believe individual human brains all carry roughly the same capacity, whereas body types limit our physical strength. In other words, not everyone can be a body builder, but everyone can become smart.
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.
IQ test results are returned as a quotient (the Q part of IQ). By definition, it is a single number.
You are, obviously, as evidenced by your higher IQ.
Now if you want to change your analogy to "my neighbor is an architect" instead of some menial laborer, your post would be more thought provoking.
What your neighbor exhibits is experience and knowledge (how to operate tools to frame houses), which has nothing to do with intelligence and aptitude.
Linguistic fluency is not an accurate measurement. Take a French speaker taking a test in English. If he scores poorly due to language barriers, is he really less intelligent? I use this example as a German degree holder who studied one year in Germany and didn't understand a damn thing in any class that wasn't related to trains, beer, or soccer.
Factual knowledge is used in achievement tests, not aptitude tests. The IQ test is an aptitude test, not an achievement test, therefore there is no factual knowledge in a properly written IQ test. You'll never see, for example, "what is 2 + 2", or "conjugate the following verb correctly" on an IQ test.
Have you ever seen foreign language aptitude tests? There's one the government uses called DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) that consists of two sections. The second section consist of nothing but visual (no words, all pictures) metaphors that relate to language and language acquisition. There is no way to study for this, because you only study for factual tests. It measures your language aptitude alone and is one of the best language tests ever conceived.
If the smart kid wrote "Give me regaurds to Holy Wood", he'd be no less intelligent in a properly written IQ test, because following language rules is knowledge..something not part of one's IQ nor part of the IQ test.
Intelligence tests measure aptitude. Achievement tests are what you are looking for.
Factual knowledge does not contribute to one's IQ score, as a proper IQ test does not have test questions based on factual knowledge. For that, try Jeopardy.
You are giving Texas an unfair representation based on a few high profile non-stories. Texas actually has a very highly rated public school system, regardless of the few retards we have trying to push stupid religious stuff on the rest of us.
If you couple this with the research that shows a high correlation between self-control and success (much higher correlation than IQ), then an inescapable conclusion results. It is not the brilliant mind that is destined for success, but rather the motivated well-disciplined mind.
Agree 100%...I was incredibly average thinker and academic. I was surrounded by people 2-3x my intellectual prowess. I, however, actually went to class at 8am, planned out my degree plan and stuck to it, and did the work required of me to graduate. Guess which average thinker graduated top 5%? THIS guy, who scored an incredibly average 1100 on the SAT.
A more accurate correlation for success would be the ability to follow the established norms and practicing self-control.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
It's training, motivation, self-discipline and the rest that make people successful, not what wheels they have.
Sorry, but you gotta have the wheels to succeed at the highest levels.
Look at professional athletes (look to the NBA or NFL, for example, or in your case the EPL or Rugby Union). There are plenty of talented and motivated athletes in the world who's careers ended in college because they weren't big/fast/strong enough (i.e. the wheels they have weren't good enough).
Curved tests are only valid when trying to compare one person to another (or one group to another), which is exactly the point of the IQ test.
In public schools and colleges, though, it makes no sense. Education is not a competition. Students either meet the standards or the don't (on a continuum, but not a continuum based on what their peers around them are doing).
You can only be a "good test taker" if a test is poorly written. A properly written test measures to see if the objectives have been met, not whether or not you can be tricked into picking the right or wrong answer. A properly written test should be actually fairly easy if the material was taught correctly and the learners learned what was taught.
Our infatuation with writing hard tests and test scores in general is really stupid. Tests exist as a measurement to see if you actually learned what you were supposed to. It's not a badge of honor for us test writers to trick students, or create consistently low scores. If there are consistently low test scores, it could be the material isn't being taught, but most likely, it's a lousy test.
I tend to think that most people in the world believe individual human brains all carry roughly the same capacity, whereas body types limit our physical strength. In other words, not everyone can be a body builder, but everyone can become smart.
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.
IQ test results are returned as a quotient (the Q part of IQ). By definition, it is a single number.
You are, obviously, as evidenced by your higher IQ.
Now if you want to change your analogy to "my neighbor is an architect" instead of some menial laborer, your post would be more thought provoking.
What your neighbor exhibits is experience and knowledge (how to operate tools to frame houses), which has nothing to do with intelligence and aptitude.
That's actually really funny, but it will be lost on most people, since they don't understand what the "quotient" part of IQ test means.
What's the point of trying harder if the aptitude isn't there in the first place? You can only try so hard until you get max returns with some people.
Common sense isn't so common after all, it seems.
Cleverness in itself is usually seen as a slightly suspect thing.
Ooh, thanks! I have a new catchphrase to replace my usual "anti-intellectualism in America is in full bloom".
Or even more succinctly, "people are stupid".
I don't really care about their motivation to do well, only that they indeed do well. I can do better than half of my coworkers without even trying.
I'll take a bunch of under-motivated talented people of untalented motivated people all day long (unless it's some menial labor).
Linguistic fluency is not an accurate measurement. Take a French speaker taking a test in English. If he scores poorly due to language barriers, is he really less intelligent? I use this example as a German degree holder who studied one year in Germany and didn't understand a damn thing in any class that wasn't related to trains, beer, or soccer.
Factual knowledge is used in achievement tests, not aptitude tests. The IQ test is an aptitude test, not an achievement test, therefore there is no factual knowledge in a properly written IQ test. You'll never see, for example, "what is 2 + 2", or "conjugate the following verb correctly" on an IQ test.
Have you ever seen foreign language aptitude tests? There's one the government uses called DLAB (Defense Language Aptitude Battery) that consists of two sections. The second section consist of nothing but visual (no words, all pictures) metaphors that relate to language and language acquisition. There is no way to study for this, because you only study for factual tests. It measures your language aptitude alone and is one of the best language tests ever conceived.
You are missing the point.
If the smart kid wrote "Give me regaurds to Holy Wood", he'd be no less intelligent in a properly written IQ test, because following language rules is knowledge..something not part of one's IQ nor part of the IQ test.
Intelligence tests measure aptitude. Achievement tests are what you are looking for.
Factual knowledge does not contribute to one's IQ score, as a proper IQ test does not have test questions based on factual knowledge. For that, try Jeopardy.
You are giving Texas an unfair representation based on a few high profile non-stories. Texas actually has a very highly rated public school system, regardless of the few retards we have trying to push stupid religious stuff on the rest of us.
If you couple this with the research that shows a high correlation between self-control and success (much higher correlation than IQ), then an inescapable conclusion results. It is not the brilliant mind that is destined for success, but rather the motivated well-disciplined mind.
Agree 100%...I was incredibly average thinker and academic. I was surrounded by people 2-3x my intellectual prowess. I, however, actually went to class at 8am, planned out my degree plan and stuck to it, and did the work required of me to graduate. Guess which average thinker graduated top 5%? THIS guy, who scored an incredibly average 1100 on the SAT.
A more accurate correlation for success would be the ability to follow the established norms and practicing self-control.
Or to put it bluntly: of what use to anyone is a brilliant mind who doesn't give a shit?
It's much easier to motivate an intelligent person than it is to make an unintelligent person intelligent.
Hmm, if that's the case, why don't we replace interviews with just presenting your IQ score?
Donald Trump and George W Bush are successful and rich, I bet their combined IQ is under 200.
Not flaming here, but I'd bet the combined IQ is probably 150 (75 each).
I can think of a few columnists I'd consider rich.
I would say being a Professor of Anything at USC is considered successful, and probably close enough to rich for my tastes.
The bouncer, well, err, success is in the eye of the beholder I suppose?
it literally takes me a year or two sometimes to understand a lecture on a difficult topic and put it to use.
I graduated college in 1993 and I'm still trying to understand how to put most of those lectures to use.
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.
It's only so you can vote for a communist like Obama
Wait, I thought your ilk thinks Obama is a socialist. Which is it? What's that? Oh, you don't know the difference? Well, that explains a lot...
If I go to school that long, the last thing I want awarded to me is Dr. Phil.
The 'great minds' earning PhDs in life sciences, probably would never be useful in the world of 'real' science anyway, so no great loss.
And I presume, then, that PhDs in real science would never be useful in life science....which is kind of the entire point of this article.