New Testingstan

I recently took a intelligence test in psychological survey exercise and I've perhaps got an IQ of 111 (with a verbal of 103). A bit above average, though I take the test's result with some caution.

111 is pretty much bang on average. 100 hasn't been the standard for a very long time.

From what I've read, IQ as a concept in general, not just the current testing, is bunk since there's no consistent form of unified intelligence.

It's not 'bunk', but it's very crude. An IQ test is good at picking up if the test subject deviates from the expected value and the direction of the deviation, and as long as that's what it's used for it's a useful tool. The numbers it generates however are very, very rough approximations and not fit for specific interpretation.

My IQ was something like 135 last time it was done. That was about 10 years ago, though.

At seven years old I had been diagnosed with an IQ of 147, which apparently put me in the top percentile of the population.

However, all it mean is that I never learned how to effectively -work-, because I never really had to. And so here I am...

I was told growing up that I was above average in intelligence, and I am pretty sure it showed in early tests I did at school. But all it did was make me unwilling to do anything with said intelligence. This is apparently a common thing. It's counterintuitive to not praise someone for their intelligence, especially if you're a parent who wants to be proud of your child. But you should praise your kid for the work he or she does, rather than say stuff like intelligence is innate.

I was supposed to have been placed in gifted classes but because I was so fucking bored all the time in school I'd always get in trouble so the obvious solution was to keep me in those boring classes where I'd read the entire textbook by week 3 and just tune out the teachers bullshit the rest of the year. Except math, which I still can barely do.

Maths is a great example of what I'm talking about. I always struggled with it, but I was always told I was smart - and it showed in other classes. So I just gave up, because I was smart in other areas so I could afford to not be smart in maths.

As part of a weird incident involving the NSW board of education, my IQ was tested and it was "about 150" as my mother put it.

But owing to family strife I also completely lacked any ambition or reason to utilise that intellect outside of talking about television. Periodically I wonder what I could have accomplished had my family not crumbled and somebody held me to some standards.

Bounty wrote:100 hasn't been the standard for a very long time.

Was it ever?

It's the arithmetic mean of the bell curve for IQ, but when people say average intelligence what they're referring to (or should be...) is actually the first deviation or about 90 to 110. A truly fair IQ test (for a given population) would have just a bit more than 2/3s of all people fall within this range with the rest split evenly between below and above average.

Stofsk wrote:Maths is a great example of what I'm talking about. I always struggled with it, but I was always told I was smart - and it showed in other classes. So I just gave up, because I was smart in other areas so I could afford to not be smart in maths.

Ohhhhhhhh my god this was me too. Kindred spirit

I honestly don't know what my IQ is anymore. All my life my father has told me that when they tested me to see if I needed to go into the "special" classes for my ADHD I was at the bottom edge of the "gifted" range, but when I showed some documents to the Special Services office at Macomb, the only number I could remember seeing on it was a 71.

I've never had an IQ test*. For all I know I could be anywhere from Forrest Gump** to Stephen Hawking.

*That I know of, anyway.

**My mother never had to sleep with my principal to get me into school though so probably not.

Seeing that 71 really depressed me for a while too, because the whole time I was thinking "hey, i'm smart enough to succeed in college," and then BAM. Written proof that i'm actually borderline mentally challenged.


EDIT: Ugh. Really Los? We haven't moved past this yet?

Look man 71 is still passing.

i think the whole iq concept is bullshit, and the tests most definitely are. idk what the experts think, but if they think it is useful they are incorrect

and here's why: brains change with time. they grow, they learn, they forget


imagine if someone did a muscle test. if you're out of shape, you might bench like 50 pounds and be a weakling. but if you were to work out for a while, you might be able to come back and do 200 pounds next time

if you're lazy like me, actually working out for a year is going to be hard.... but if you really wanted to, even laziness isn't a blocker

on the other hand, you could do 200 one year, then slack off and go down to 50.



and moreover, there's different kinds of muscles and putting them all in one number would be silly. my arms are fairly pathetic (right now) but i can walk for miles after miles, so a generic 'weak' doesn't give a good picture



well brains are kinda similar. if you really wanna do something and are willing to work, you'll get better at it over time, and if you slack you'll get worse at things over time


it might be hard, really hard sometimes..... but intelligence isn't set in stone, so the number is pretty useless


and besides, low numbers are discouraging, making you think you just can't do it

and high numbers are discouraging, making you think you don't have to do it

either way the iq test results are bullshit

Congrats, here's your Ph.D

i used to kinda want a phd. i used to kinda want a boat too

both for kinda the same reasons: being called 'doctor' or 'captain' and having the romantic freedom that goes with it - push the frontier of SCIENCE or set sail to anywhere on the high seas


but now i'm pretty meh about it. both options sound too much like....

...work.

It would still be worth it, though, to get like a little rinky-dink sail boat or something (provided you could afford it, blah blah) just so that whenever you drive/walk/ride/etc over a span of water, you can announce to everyone within earshot: "Captain on the bridge!"

owning a boat isn't a means to an end, but a pretty cool end in itself

This weather though

(HOI 2 talk) So I'm planning to hold the line in India with 36 divisions, 15 of those divisions being Aussies. Hopefully that's enough.

In other news the Canadians haven't done much yet, though I suppose I'll use them as my spearhead forces when I invade Italy. North Africa is mine at this point.

Not sure how the invasion of Europe will go, or what Japan is going to get up to in the Pacific. The US did pull 8 carriers out of its ass within the first eight months of the war, though. So hopefully they'll keep things handled for me while I focus on Europe.

RogueIce wrote:It would still be worth it, though, to get like a little rinky-dink sail boat or something (provided you could afford it, blah blah) just so that whenever you drive/walk/ride/etc over a span of water, you can announce to everyone within earshot: "Captain on the bridge!"

hell yes

god yes that's amazing


similarly i could use nautical lingo in all other parts of life. like right now my bedroom has a north window

but if i were a real life sea captain, it would be a starboard aft window

my door would become a hatch (just like in the real life navy JAG)

and avast! EVERY DAY would be talk like a pirate day!!!!!1 arrrrrrrrrrrr!



ok anyone have a boat they wanna sell me? i have a budget of ... counts cash ... $15.50. work with me, folks.

Does it have to be a real boat?

i actually have an inflatable toy boat somewhere upstairs

alas i'm over the weight limit

Lose that weight fatty lol

aren't windows called portholes on a boat