What does my IQ mean?
I recently received my IQ. On Sunday I took a Mensa IQ test to try to get into Mensa high IQ society, it has a large array of free courses and you get more attention, and a community of high IQ people (to get in you need at least 148 IQ). I was worried because I didn’t want to be titled dumb, average or mildly intelligent. I felt that my IQ was everything about me, but is it really?
IQ is complicated. Our intelligence quotient can’t be marked exactly for our entire life. I’m under 15 and received the same test as 30 year olds, and it doesn’t account for so many important and sometimes better qualities, like creativity and emotional intelligence. The official definition of intelligence is “The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills’’. But an IQ test doesn’t test this.
Our lifes impact on our intelligence
All humans are different. And our lives. So a lot of us don’t get many chances to succeed. To learn a new skill or apply something new. And a lot of us are denied any aid during our childhood where we absorb the most information. So we don’t acquire much knowledge or skill. And also makes it much harder to take the test if you don’t speak much of the required language. Let’s say there’s a person in Ethiopia called Aaron. He is 21 years old and has just taken his IQ test. He is literate and received education for 4 years, but not of great quality. And he lives in a low income household. He scores 61 on the IQ test. Whereas someone in the United States let’s call them Jake, also 21 male, he received a normal education and is in a middle income household. And he attended an intermediate college. On the IQ test he scored 98. This shows a high achiever in one country scores less than a middle achiever in another country compared to the rest of their country and their own capabilities.
But the IQ test doesn’t see that the lower scoring person would actually score more if they were given a chance, because they’ve experienced less and feel they have less to lose if they try to succeed and dedicate time to it. And they tend to be better at strategizing resources and creative thinking, so would thrive in IQ tests under right conditions. So the IQ tests may tell you how intelligent you are, but only based on the education and income you received, not a universal average to compare to. And an average for each country or area to compare too still wouldn’t work well, because low IQ still isn’t something good. It does still mean you may not be as good as others at comparing words to find the most similar or most different. And finding patterns in shapes. These skills are not of intelligence, sure finding patterns can help in political analysis and market analysis and so on, but is that really intelligence?
My IQ and what it tells me
I recently received my IQ, it made me question what IQ even means. But when we got the email it said I got 147, same as my brother and didn’t get into mensa by 1 IQ. Yes this was disappointing because of the 1 IQ difference, but it’s still something I can put on a resume or portfolio, or my website and many people are intrigued because most people don’t know of the IQ tests huge flaws, or if they do they think it can still achieve more than in reality.
So my IQ, definitely great. Can help me and other people will think i’m intelligent, but in reality i’m not actually by my IQ, it’s a choice whether to use it as a skill (put it on resumes and other things) or tell them the truth about the IQ test, or simply never show it.
How did IQ tests begin?
In 1905 Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon designed a test for children who were struggling in school in France. Designed to determine which children needed attention. And the method formed the basis of our modern IQ test. But even then and now there’s no single agreed upon definition of the intelligence the IQ tests use. And what started as a way to see which school children needed help, over time became a way for everyone to assume their intelligence and gain a position in the workplace, government or ideologies (for example in WW1 the US used them to sort recruits and screen them for officer training). And at the time IQ also was considered to be evidence of white people having superiority (obviously not true). And the IQ test began hurting people more widespread with factors other than race, in 1924 Virginia passed a law allowing forced sterilization of people with low IQ scores, A decision that even the supreme court upheld.
In Nazi Germany, the government even allowed the murder of children based on low IQ. But from then on the IQ tests discriminatory practices were challenged by the impeccable fighters of science, and morality. And this was the first time when environmental impacts on said person’s IQ were taken into consideration and used as evidence against the IQ test. And IQ tests were reorganised for each new generation, they still don’t account for environmental factors but there are no longer laws that do horrible things to people with low IQ. And the Flynn effect (when new generations do better at old tests than current IQ tests as they are made more difficult) took place. And scientists said this was because of improved wealth and education for everyone. Plus better healthcare and nutrition. But what it has done is a good job at measuring reasoning and measuring, not intelligence.
What could replace it?
Well, we don’t have many options. The IQ test though it has many flaws is still widely recognised today. But there is one alternative so far. BrainsFirst. Out of all the alternatives it’s the most functional and best working one. It understands the failures of the IQ tests and has made a better one over the past 9 years. But so far it’s to get you a job. As they call it “The matchmaker between brain and job”. So a great one is yet to come, perhaps you can make it
Summary
Overall, IQ is not an Intelligence Quotient. If you get a low score don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you’re not smart, and it’s so easy to rigg it simply by studying how to do it and finding the patterns. Yes if you have a high IQ you may be intelligent, but if you have low IQ it doesn’t mean you’re not intelligent. It just means you may have not had much time, best life or actually aren’t super smart. Plus don’t worry this system will most likely be replaced so we won’t be stuck with the IQ tests forever. But for now, were fine with finding your measuring ability and reasoning.
