Can Intelligence Really be Measured by a Test?

I think it is a case of: Do you know a better way of measuring intellectual attainment?

There are many types of intelligence, and intelligence tests to do not claim to measure every type, just intellectual levels.

Yes, like any test you can get better with a bit of practice, but again it is not a question of saying at this score you are this, and at the other score you are precisely this much brighter,

I note that it always the intelligence test that everyone gets screwed up about, no one queries when someone shows high attainment in sport, or when we taalk about emotional intelligence.

I think there is something very deep and primal in most people that really resents knowing that someone, or worse someone elses child has an above average intelligence - an intelligence higher than theirs or their childs.

We all recognise when someone in the public eye is highly intelligent - Professor Stephen Hawking, Professor Brian Cox, Stephen Fry, we just do not like to admit it if there is someone in our world is obviously more intelligent than most.

Hi Magenta, I know someone who was invited to become a MENSA member in the 1980s. Although it caused some excitement in the family at the time, nothing else much changed for him.

He was encouraged to do the test at the time by a colleague and went along out of curiosity. He never did tertiary education after leaving school and worked happily all his life as a skilled tradesman.

I remember him saying that he attended a few MENSA social gatherings “that were pretty much like any other get-together”.

I’m inclined to agree with you re nuance in intelligence e.g. I’m not sure emotional intelligence is innate in everyone who is “clever”.

I can sometimes get questions right quite far along in the 1% Club quiz, having duffed up on earlier ones, and have even on occasion worked out the final answer. I’m sure that’s true for many people.

My eldest child joined after seeing an advert and doing a test when he was aged about 7.
No previous knowledge of experience of theses tests at all for any of us. When later it came to
Sitting 11+ I was made aware of how much effort when into coaching children to get through this. I simply refused.

The carrot at the end of my stick to get an A grade in my 11+ in Scotland in the mid-50s was a shiny new bike! Not a problem!

I have never seen the point of MENSA, a club where the only thing members have in common is that they scored highly in intelligence tests.

If I wanted to meet people with a high level of intelligence I would want to go somewhere where I could have the benefit of the use they had put this intelligence. I would prefer to attend lectures at one of the learned societies or the public lectures at a university.

I did a Mensa test for fun and, to my surprise, scored highly. I then sat the supervised ‘proper’ test and, as a result, was invited to join Mensa. I was tempted until I saw the hidden costs!
I’m not concerned that I didn’t become a Mensa member. I took the test for my own amusement, and it was enough for me that I could have joined if I had wanted to. It boosted my confidence to know I am quite bright, and I am happy with that.

Mensa offers membership to ‘the top 2%’ as selected by their test or one in 50 people. Members in various areas organise their own meetings. Some are in pubs or restaurants, others are lectures by members or guest speakers or discussions. Some events are suitable for families and other specifically for younger members. Members are from all walks of life and some assert that what they enjoy most is encountering people who they would be very unlikely to meet in their everyday life and hear about their very different jobs and experiences.

I find myself competing with my 12 year old grandson on the 1% Club. I normally sail through all the word based questions but have awful trouble with the number ones. He is the opposite, can't understand why I can't see how easy (!) the number ones are. but has problems with the words. He has always been clever and very curious about everything, which I always see as a sign of intelligence. What's the use of a brain if you don't use it to find things out?

I think I did the tests because I feel very insecure about my lack of qualifications. Like many other people drawn to MENSA, I needed to prove to myself I wasn't a complete idiot. Somehow life intervened or I was too idle to gain any meaningful qualifications after leaving school.

I do not have a degree in anything and my only qualification is a basic SRN which I have never needed to use to get a job.

I understand your motivation, Magenta. Qualifications are not necessarily a measure of intelligence!

One of my children has several degrees - and no common sense...

dogsmother

My eldest child joined after seeing an advert and doing a test when he was aged about 7.
No previous knowledge of experience of theses tests at all for any of us. When later it came to
Sitting 11+ I was made aware of how much effort when into coaching children to get through this. I simply refused.

My kids all went to grammar school. They had no coaching or tutoring.

Crossstitchfan

I did a Mensa test for fun and, to my surprise, scored highly. I then sat the supervised ‘proper’ test and, as a result, was invited to join Mensa. I was tempted until I saw the hidden costs!
I’m not concerned that I didn’t become a Mensa member. I took the test for my own amusement, and it was enough for me that I could have joined if I had wanted to. It boosted my confidence to know I am quite bright, and I am happy with that.

Very similar experience here. My friend and I were both invited to join after successfully completing the 'proper' Mensa tests while we were at university, but decided not to bother because of the costs involved. We both took the tests purely out of curiosity, I guess...

It’s hard knowing you are getting old. For me, when I feel a bit age-worn, I think that knowing I could have joined Mensa has given me a boost. At 80, on days when I do something silly, and realise how ancient I am, I cheer myself up by thinking, ‘I could have joined Mensa! I am nobody’s fool!’ It does help me to feel like a somebody and not a nobody. Daft really, I suppose.

In "my day" we were given no warning (let alone coaching) re the 11+

We were just presented with it one day... and then it was over.

NotSpaghetti Ditto.

I find genetics absolutely fascinating. My sister and I have very different intellectual abilities although neither of us has suffered any medical reason for this disparity. It is just how we are. I think Mensa tests are a bit like beauty contests, as the people taking part are just demonstrating what they were born with rather than what they have worked for, bit like the size of their feet or the colour of their eyes.

Crossstitchfan

It’s hard knowing you are getting old. For me, when I feel a bit age-worn, I think that knowing I could have joined Mensa has given me a boost. At 80, on days when I do something silly, and realise how ancient I am, I cheer myself up by thinking, ‘I could have joined Mensa! I am nobody’s fool!’ It does help me to feel like a somebody and not a nobody. Daft really, I suppose.

I think that's brilliant

And that approach works both ways - when my friend's husband (the MENSA man) asks her for help with the cryptic crossword, she is known to jokingly respond "You're the genius, work it out!"

NotSpaghetti

In "my day" we were given no warning (let alone coaching) re the 11+

We were just presented with it one day... and then it was over.

I di not know the 11 plus even existed. In my last year in junior school. I started the year at a British syllabus school in Hong Kong, then missed a term in quarantine for chicken pox, plus moving from Hong Kong to Singapore, then in the summer term I went to the army primary school in Singapore.

One day a teacher put his head round the door and said 'Has everybody in here done their Moray House?' I put my hand up and said 'What is the Moray House' 'Right' he said, 'You obviously haven't done it, come with me' and off I went. I and about 4 others from another class were taken into a seperate classroom and I spent the morning doing all these paper tests.

A month later my parents got a letter to say I would be going to the army grammar school in the Autumn. I had no preparation. I had never even seen or done aany practice tests.

My children went to private school and sat competitive entrance tests. bar obtaining a book of practice tests, so they were familiar with the nature of the tests, I did nothing to coach them, nor did I get them any coaching. I wanted them to feel relaxed about the tests, they would do better if they were relaxed about them any way. We made it clear that if they got a place at the school it was fine, if they didn't, it wasn't the end of the world, there were plenty of other schools. They made the cut for both schools.

The mensa test proves to intelligent people who already know they are, that yes! They are intelligent.🤭

In the old days ie before the introduction of Comprehensive education, I doubt many children had coaching for the 11 plus. However, in those LAs that retain grammar schools the competition for places is very intense and coaching is common place. Coaching can definitely improve performance which IMO demonstrates that the tests are testing something other than innate intelligence. The UCAT and BMAT tests used entry into medical school are also used to test general intelligence but if someone took the tests twice on different days I doubt they'd get the same results!

Re the 11 plus, because we’d been living abroad, dd1 had never seen the type of ‘verbal reasoning’ tests they then used, until her first term at a U.K. school. Around a year previously, she’d failed an entrance exam for a selective school - the exam had consisted largely of such tests.

A friend of MiL, who ran a small private prep school, had told me that practice would make no difference - the tests were designed to ascertain their ‘potential’ - thus implying that dd had no potential! Glad to say that MiL was as miffed as I was!

Her new U.K. school - she had just one term before the 11 plus - gave them practice tests every day. Her initial scores were around 45% but by the end of term they were more like 90%+.
So much for practice making no difference!

She passed the 11+, and the entrance exam for a highly selective independent.

IQ tests test the ability to do IQ tests - that is all.

Whether that ability leads to a happier and more successful life no-one knows.

I passed the 11+ but we were coached! I noticed the effect of this after missing a coaching session - at the next I couldn't answer a question because the principle of it was new to me. The others had covered it the week before. My O and A levels were pretty mediocre but I did manage university and got a Lower Second - nothing out of the ordinary. However, I did take the Mensa test and passed, which was a bit of a boost to my morale. I met some interesting people but the local group folded after a while.

Our granddaughter was quite ill on the day of 11+. Temperature and weak, not due to nerves.
Had it not been for her practice sessions to carry her through, she would probably not have passed.
Tests test how to pass tests!