A while back my husband and I were talking about IQ tests and that neither of us actually knew what our IQ was. Either we'd never been tested or we didn't remember the results. We looked up some online IQ tests and after finding quite a few, we each made the time to take 4 tests each over the course of one week and then we compared our results. Of the 4 tests I took, the results were within a 3-point range and my husband's fell within a 4-point range. I must admit, I was a little bit relieved to find that my husband's IQ was, on average, only 3 points higher than mine. :)
My question is, how accurate are the online IQ tests in comparison to tests administered in a more controlled setting?
I've taken two online and a "real" one (in person at an educational facility)... all were the same score. 144. MY MIL is 145. LOL:)
There are "official" sites for this, but I'd have to say that 95% of "IQ tests" online are not the real deal.
Nowhere near.
In no small part because modern IQ tests are multiphasal (looking at several different areas) that cannot be duplicated online.
As a hint... These tests (IRL) take 2-4 hours or MORE. Ever take an online one that took longer than 20 minutes?
The old style of IQ Tests (what you find online) were first developed not to measure intellectual capacity AND facility (different things... Modern tests are looking more at HOW you learn and assimilate, rather than what you know)... But to place French Children in an appropriate grade after years of not being in school following the war. It was purely a "what do you know or could be taught quickly" test.
This is why modern tests for kids (wisc, etc.) can peg gifted, highly gifted, and profoundly gifted TODDLERS/ young children fairly accurately, depending on your administrator. (Modern tests are often highly subjective).
It's the 'what can you be taught quickly' aspect that made IQ tests famous/widely used... But they are NOTORIOUSLY inaccurate. True geniuses (aka profoundly gifted) tend to score quite low on old IQ tests, because of asynchronistic development. Renaissance Gifted is EXTREMELY rare, and the people who generally score highest on old IQ tests are those with acquired knowledge specific to k12 schooling. Theyre ESSENTIALLY CliffNote SATs.
Not accurate at all. I know what my IQ is and there is no way in hell it is 189. It is high but not that high!
I suspect the results from the online tests are grossly inflated.
At the risk of sounding like a geek... ;)
Do you know where the whole IQ test thing comes from? Eugenics. Charles Darwin's cousin took Darwin's theory about survival of the fittest to the next level. It is actually a natural progression, I think.The thought was that if they can test IQs, they can sterilize people so they can't "breed" anymore. This actually happened in the US. The US Supreme Court even ruled that "three generations of imbeciles is enough" and that compulsory sterilization did not violate the due process clause of the 14th ammendment to the Consitution.The case was Buck v. Bell in 1907. NC recently has apologized for the sterilizations that they did to many people during this era, and are compensating anyone who comes forward as a victim to this horrible atrocity. Margaret Sanger was heavily involved with this thinking. This is why she set up PP in black neighborhoods. She wanted to exterminate black people. She was wicked. She spoke for KKK gatherings, and they loved her. And it is the basis for Hitler's extermination of the Jews as he was trying to create his so-called perfect Arian race. Here is an article that you might find useful: http://crackingthelearningcode.com/bonus1.html
Apparently the SAT tests are based in this whole IQ thing. James Conan's (developer of the SAT) stated reason for developing the SAT was to help identify, label, and select a preferred aristocracy, creating a new frontier for the select few.
So, there is some food for thought anyway. I think there are so many things we don't even scratch the surface on in our culture. We don't even know to scratch. I hope someone finds this helpful anyway. Blessings!
I got one in middle school. Then I did a big paper on the traditional IQ test in college and took a huge amount of them from different sources. It was amazing how much some did differ. Mostly it was the online ones. Most people are at 100 or 101 for females on average. I gave the entire class one, some did refuse actually which made M. laugh, as part of my project and it was amazing that most of my research was right there in the tests they all took. Most were at about 100 as the stats showed. Not many people above the 130 at all. I think it was exactly the 5% and the couple of well couples that were in the class also followed the pattern of their iq's being within points of each other.
But the traditional old school IQ test is well crappy at best. It test very basic things. If you have street smarts or extreme common sense most would think you were intelligent but on an IQ you'd pry do normal at best. Now if you have a photographic memory you might do severely high and all it is well you have a photographic mind! Might still be pretty dumb! lol. There are far better tests that are multi leveled now. The old ones if you thought like an engineer you'd automatically do awesome J. because of that.
I still loved that at the time I did my presentation/paper/final whatever you wanted to call it the person with the highest confirmed IQ was a woman! Loved that. I was in a socio class and it was alot of men who were pigs so that was awesome to say and even tell them her's was higher than Einstein's. Really chapped their hides.
But I found while doing that paper that most online ones were junk. There was a couple of reputable ones in the end that gave consistent results. Not many though. I J. take the online ones as fun. I did this back in 2007 though so it's been awhile. Maybe there are more good ones online now but in my experience they were J. fun.
I love Jo W. and Denise J's answers! You both are so funny!
I have no idea what my IQ is. I J. know that I lost some of it when I went into menopause!
(Though I lost my short-term memory when I lost my placentas!)
Have a great weekend!
Dawn
The only thing I care about was that I scored three points higher than my hubby so I'm sticking with it. ;)
I'm not sure any of it will mean much one way or the other.
I've always scored about 145 on most tests, but there was one on Facebook that had M. at 165.
They aren't. Well, they probably are to an extent. On one level. However, intelligence isn't so one note. Many people are awful at school, but amazing at business. (Look up all the billionaires who have never graduated high school.) Many artist's IQ tests would score low, yet they have a creative IQ a good tester could never dream of. Our family friend has a daughter with a mensa type IQ. She is a doctor. Yet, her emotional IQ is VERY low. She has no common sense, and has the least creativity of any human I've ever met. She is an awesome doctor, but she is completely socially inept. Unless she is doing something as a doctor, she can hardly leave her house without having a panic attack. There are all different kinds of intelligence, that a blanket test could never measure.
My husband is much more intelligent then M. in many ways, and I test at a very high IQ. His, is much lower. Yet, he is able to think of things and do things I never could. IQ has very little to do with success and happiness, I've found. That's the problems with IQ tests. They don't actually measure anything very valuable. They don't measure the whole scope of intelligence, and they aren't a foreshadowing of anything.
