Whats your I.Q.
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If you feel like sharing it, please do. I figure if people share their age then why not share your IQ if you know it. Although its just a number, it does give some indication of how hard of a profession programming is to see the IQ scores of some of the more advanced users.
Mine: While I've never taken an 'I.Q.' test per se, at least not one that was called one. I took a standardized test in 7th grade, 'CTBS' which stands for either 'Comprehensive test of basic skills' or something like that.
I was a classic underachiever in school, always turning my homework in late, or sometimes not even doing it. When my parents went in for parent teacher conferences, the school counselor, concerned about my 'slacking off' was so determined to convince my parents to put me in remedial classes that she took out my CTBS test results and her jaw dropped, say my parents. 98-99th percentile in most categories. which they say corresponds to about a 135 IQ. I took the ACT college entrance exam as a 'gifted student' the following year and scored something like a 22, average for a high school junior. 4 years later when i took the same exam again i only improved my score by about 2 points, which i attributed to my slacking off in HS, that and the occasional joint may have impaired my memory. Lamentable, but such is life.
I'm curious to see what your scores are. While I'm sure there will be a wide range of answers I'm sure many will be much higher.
Mine: While I've never taken an 'I.Q.' test per se, at least not one that was called one. I took a standardized test in 7th grade, 'CTBS' which stands for either 'Comprehensive test of basic skills' or something like that.
I was a classic underachiever in school, always turning my homework in late, or sometimes not even doing it. When my parents went in for parent teacher conferences, the school counselor, concerned about my 'slacking off' was so determined to convince my parents to put me in remedial classes that she took out my CTBS test results and her jaw dropped, say my parents. 98-99th percentile in most categories. which they say corresponds to about a 135 IQ. I took the ACT college entrance exam as a 'gifted student' the following year and scored something like a 22, average for a high school junior. 4 years later when i took the same exam again i only improved my score by about 2 points, which i attributed to my slacking off in HS, that and the occasional joint may have impaired my memory. Lamentable, but such is life.
I'm curious to see what your scores are. While I'm sure there will be a wide range of answers I'm sure many will be much higher.
I agree with you it would be interesting to see some of the people willing to share thier scores. As for me I HAVE taken a real IQ test, it's actually a series of tests taken at different times, questions are all weighted differently blah blah blah, and your score is averaged across them. Mine was 119, which I'm told is dead average for my generation. So I consider myself living proof that you don't have to be a super genious to learn C\C++.
91 iirc.
Does that make me stupid? No.
In fact, I actually consider myself to be smarter than most people I meet/have met.
Does that make me stupid? No.
In fact, I actually consider myself to be smarter than most people I meet/have met.
I'd guess my IQ is 12x, lots of years ago I remember it was 126. I'm slow but I'm not still.
In fact none of us are. What's this IQ business if not a manifestation of our own insecurities? Not to nuke this thread, but seriously if the intelligence quotient is strictly related to problem solving you might do well to remember life is much more than that. Dare I say, even the act of programming.
In fact none of us are. What's this IQ business if not a manifestation of our own insecurities? Not to nuke this thread, but seriously if the intelligence quotient is strictly related to problem solving you might do well to remember life is much more than that. Dare I say, even the act of programming.
Last one I took in highschool scored me at 126 ( I think ). They started testing me every 3 years when I was about 7 for some reason or another. I was in the 97th percentile when I took the first one, and it remained about that range for a while. I don't know why but it started to drop around middle school.
I took the BBC IQ test that they ran on TV a few years ago and I scored 122 but I was 16 then and I'm 22 now so i don't really know. I don't see a need for IQ tests anyway really, anyone who joins mensa needs to take a serious look at their life IMO.
Mensa is like anyother lodge, you join them meet people. In their case you join them to meet intelligent people. IMHO, most of those "intellectuals" are unbearably obnoxious.
I don't believe in IQ testing. I'm not sure if I believe intelligence is quantifiable at all, but if it is, I seriously doubt a single, one-dimensional number is capable of representing intelligence. Intelligence manifests itself in many ways - memory, verbal reasoning, spatial reasoning, motor skills, creativity, problem solving and pattern recognition are examples, and only some of those are tested. Also, you can actually improve your IQ score by doing the test several times, and AFAICR IQ tests are biased towards certain groups.
I've never taken a proper IQ test, only Internet ones, and I tend to get scores between 110 and 130, but I think most people do.
I've never taken a proper IQ test, only Internet ones, and I tend to get scores between 110 and 130, but I think most people do.
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I just took few online tests and my average score is 125.
One interesting thing I found about online tests is that you don't even need to think to score IQ around 80; I took a test and by clicking random answers I scored 87 :D
One interesting thing I found about online tests is that you don't even need to think to score IQ around 80; I took a test and by clicking random answers I scored 87 :D
Around 145. . . according to some online IQ test I took several years ago, so it's probably 10 to 30 points lower than that with standard tests.
I do assume that general intelligence is analyzable to a somewhat high degree. People who do research in artificial general intelligence and its associated fields like cognitive science I'm guessing would want to measure with high precision the performance of cognitive systems they build, how well they achieve or how far they get toward achieving "complex goals in complex environments." Still, I'm not quite sure how they'd define "complex goals" since the existence of goals seems dependent on some form of morality. Yet still, "surprising" outcomes are easy to imagine that very few people would deny as exhibiting high general intelligence. For example: the AGI develops a web-based company from start to operations with no intermediate help and generates a millionaire income; or the AGI constructs a human lifeform that embodies some of its mind-processing resources and gets married (to at least a somewhat classy spouse) without the spouse realizing he or she married a "machine."
I do assume that general intelligence is analyzable to a somewhat high degree. People who do research in artificial general intelligence and its associated fields like cognitive science I'm guessing would want to measure with high precision the performance of cognitive systems they build, how well they achieve or how far they get toward achieving "complex goals in complex environments." Still, I'm not quite sure how they'd define "complex goals" since the existence of goals seems dependent on some form of morality. Yet still, "surprising" outcomes are easy to imagine that very few people would deny as exhibiting high general intelligence. For example: the AGI develops a web-based company from start to operations with no intermediate help and generates a millionaire income; or the AGI constructs a human lifeform that embodies some of its mind-processing resources and gets married (to at least a somewhat classy spouse) without the spouse realizing he or she married a "machine."
| I don't believe in IQ testing. |
I agree with chrisname, but also I accept helios' point that I'm not really qualified to criticise the tests' suitability for purpose. Nonetheless, one must do things like define words in the tests IMO. Knowledge is very definitely separate to intelligence.
I would be vaguely interested to know my IQ, but I'm not paying a psychologist to find out something which I don't overly care about ;)
I would be vaguely interested to know my IQ, but I'm not paying a psychologist to find out something which I don't overly care about ;)
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My IQ is has a small variance on it of posinf sigmas. ;)
I took a proper test when I was 6 (many, many years ago), however I found out that the number that I got back from it was probably way to low owing to the fact that I was bilingual, putting me at a strong disadvantage on the language section. Or... something like that. For all practical purposes, I don't know my IQ.
To some extent I agree with chrisname (and I have taken courses in psychology). I... don't think trying to compress the vast amount of information that describes intelligence into a single number is a good idea. It's a useful statistic if one is trying to get a (very) general idea of where someone stands in relation to the majority (on average), but that's it.
-Albatross
I took a proper test when I was 6 (many, many years ago), however I found out that the number that I got back from it was probably way to low owing to the fact that I was bilingual, putting me at a strong disadvantage on the language section. Or... something like that. For all practical purposes, I don't know my IQ.
To some extent I agree with chrisname (and I have taken courses in psychology). I... don't think trying to compress the vast amount of information that describes intelligence into a single number is a good idea. It's a useful statistic if one is trying to get a (very) general idea of where someone stands in relation to the majority (on average), but that's it.
-Albatross
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@Computergeek: How can you make a blanket statement
when you aren't a member? Have you actually met most of Mensa's members personally?
| IMHO, most of those "intellectuals" are unbearably obnoxious. |
| Nonetheless, one must do things like define words in the tests IMO. |
IMHO, most of those "intellectuals" are unbearably obnoxious. |
I would say the above statement is a bit extreme. But I do agree "intellectuals" think quite differently from typical humans and hence they are conferred the title of "intellectuals" isn't it ? Do you know great inventors of the past when they passed away, some have their brains analyzed by scientists and researchers and they do find their brain "make-up" to be a bit different from typical humans brains.
So perhaps it is that "difference" that seems to be out-of-sync with typical humans that cause such misunderstanding on those "intellectuals". Thinking back, I think I feel sad for them cuz they are gifted with something which most probably is not what they want but they got to live with it and endure "other typical human eyes that perceive them as weird?"
Hmmm....
@helios,
I'm not saying that IQ doesn't correlate with intelligence, I'm sure it does (but it is comparative - an IQ of 200 is only relevant because it is high relative to other people's scores) I just don't believe it truly quantifies intelligence. Not every aspect of intelligence is covered by a typical IQ test, and some of those are hugely important such as motor skills and problem solving (i.e., finding the best solution to a problem, not just a solution or worse, the solution (as is the case with IQ tests)). Every IQ test I've ever seen involved questions with only one answer, and they were all multiple choice, There's no space for creativity, you're either right or wrong, and I don't agree with that. Obviously in maths you tend to be either right or wrong, but there are usually lots of different methods for finding the right answer, some more applicable than others (e.g., choosing the trapezium rule over integration and vice versa, going through the whole quadratic equation rather than just finding the discriminant to see how many roots a polynomial has, <insert contrived example here>).
Also, clearly you can't test motor skills very well on paper (I guess you could test dexterousness by asking people to draw or assessing handwriting) but that wouldn't be conclusive. IMO this is a big problem with IQ testing. You're just writing things on paper.
I'm not saying that IQ doesn't correlate with intelligence, I'm sure it does (but it is comparative - an IQ of 200 is only relevant because it is high relative to other people's scores) I just don't believe it truly quantifies intelligence. Not every aspect of intelligence is covered by a typical IQ test, and some of those are hugely important such as motor skills and problem solving (i.e., finding the best solution to a problem, not just a solution or worse, the solution (as is the case with IQ tests)). Every IQ test I've ever seen involved questions with only one answer, and they were all multiple choice, There's no space for creativity, you're either right or wrong, and I don't agree with that. Obviously in maths you tend to be either right or wrong, but there are usually lots of different methods for finding the right answer, some more applicable than others (e.g., choosing the trapezium rule over integration and vice versa, going through the whole quadratic equation rather than just finding the discriminant to see how many roots a polynomial has, <insert contrived example here>).
Also, clearly you can't test motor skills very well on paper (I guess you could test dexterousness by asking people to draw or assessing handwriting) but that wouldn't be conclusive. IMO this is a big problem with IQ testing. You're just writing things on paper.
So chrisname you are saying to test a person IQ should involve not only paper test but also stuff that are not on papers ? But then such test results would be subjective and it is hard to "grade" them isn't it ? I understand what you are coming from but in this world, people want to measure something that can be "graded so as to speak". Sad but true isn't it ? :(
Btw, Sad but true is a lyrics I like from Metallica. Let's all hold our hands and bow our head and chant Sad but true ! :P
Btw, Sad but true is a lyrics I like from Metallica. Let's all hold our hands and bow our head and chant Sad but true ! :P
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