Do you think IQ tests are an accurate measure of intelligence?

I don't. I once scored a 131 on an IQ test but sometimes I actually feel quite slow. I think prior knowledge and test taking ability has too much of an impact.

No. Look @ autistic scores using neurotypical based IQ v autistic-based IQ

edited 1st Oct '10 10:27:38 PM by BalloonFleet

My own score puts me in the borderline gifted range, but in the end it doesn't really mean anything in the greater scheme of things.

Can't remember any of them I've taken. I don't think any of them that just spit out a number without anything attached are worth the paper they're printed on though.

In certain respects, certainly.

I'd be careful as using it as a measure of absolute intelligence, though. Intelligence is too nebulous a concept to pin down with one single quantifiable number.

edited 2nd Oct '10 2:48:52 AM by MadassAlex

no, simply becuase they dont measure all kind of inteligence (musical, artistic, social).

Plus I will never take one. I think people should be judged byt what they do. not what they are.

edited 2nd Oct '10 7:09:09 AM by mysticgohan

I think the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test is a better indicator of intelligence than most IQ tests. Especially when you get to the spatial thinking aspect of the test.

I scored in the 90-something percentile with 99 being the highest you can get. (I got an 88 when I took it in high school)

"Intelligence" has to be properly defined before it can be properly measured.

I've heard the only thing they accurately predict is academic success. They were made to do so in order to tell which people would need special schooling, so they work perfectly.

To expand on Major Tom's point, the question is which IQ tests. I've taken the children's Wechsler (which can only measure intelligences comparatively near to average, but seems reliable enough) and the Stanford-Binet (which seems absolutely ludicrous—I got a 193 on it.)

As with any test, you can learn the sorts of questions that are on that kind of test, so it's possible to just become good at taking that kind of test (the SAT problem). Certainly, repeat IQ test scores are essentially meaningless.

Also, if it's anything like the SAT's, it is probably sort of class based. For example, the questions with similes with "regattas" and all that. No matter what your IQ, if you live in a poor area and do not get opportunities to learn, you might score lower on an IQ test than you should simply because you were not exposed to the words on there.

I can't remember the IQ Number, but I'm in the top 1% percentile of people apparently.

^^One of my school's Spanish teachers missed a question with the word "casserole." Turns out Hispanic families don't eat a lot of casseroles.

^ Why would you want to eat saucepans?

...

Turns out that in English it can also mean the food in the pan: Casserole definition. Which doesn't say much good about whoever took it over from French...

Yes, I think IQ tests are an accurate measure of intelligence, at least if you mean intelligence as in ability to learn and reason as opposed to one's accumulated knowledge.

I've heard the only thing they accurately predict is academic success.

The general mental ability they measure helps predict other things, like job performance.

edited 3rd Oct '10 8:23:03 AM by jaimeastorga2000

Which is funny, academic success (at least pre-college) is a very poor indicator of job performance. I know several people (myself included) who were terrible in high school grade wise yet can hold down a single job indefinitely.

I was terrible in high school and am now unemployed!

Of course, I have a few extenuating circumstances over here.

Nobody knows what intelligence tests actually measure. The general consensus is that they measure a general aptitude for problem solving and decision making, but that's a deductive guess, because nobody knows how to measure "potential intelligence" as opposed to "past achievement", which means that all tests are, to some degree, contaminated by environmental factors, such as socio-economic background, quality of schooling and the like. There is some neurological evidence that they partially measure cognitive efficiency of the brain, but there is very little research so far.

More info: http://www.springerlink.com/content/w14769t205615m18/

For the most part, yes. There are obvious exceptions, however.

I think they're an accurate measurement of something, but that something is more than just intelligence. Intelligence plays a part, certainly, but so do many expressive and receptive skills (eg visual recognition, ability to speak, etc) which are not true intelligence. And education also impacts it. They are a useful measurement if you take that into account. And if you examine all the subtest scores as well as the fullscale score, it's much more useful.

Incidentally, to the OP, two comments. Firstly, was it an online test? If so, be aware that there's no guarantee of accuracy if it's not administered by a trained psychologist. It might be accurate, it might not - you can't tell.

Secondly, your own subjective sense of your intelligence can be skewed by your experiences. I've heard of kids who were quite obviously gifted, both by IQ score and by simple observation (eg taught themselves to read at 2, that sort of thing) who were convinced they were stupid. This could be due to bullying, or to assuming everyone else thinks like them but manages to cope better, or a bunch of other factors.

Do IQ tests measure intelligence?

Yes, they do. This is widely agreed upon, and in reality, it holds up quite well. A properly administered IQ test is considered a reliable indicator of intelligence, at least within the range the test was designed to measure.

Is intelligence the only indicator of success in life?

No.

That being said, intelligence is one of those things that is incredibly useful and makes your life better; people with high I Qs do better than those with low I Qs in life, but other factors play nearly as large a role in success. Having a low IQ will bar you from success in many professions, though, not because of artificial barriers, but simply because you are not smart enough to succeed in them. However, not all professions require high or even average IQ.

The answer is somewhere between yes and no. Most IQ tests test parts of the package that equates to whatever intelligence is, that's certain.

They have a use — but, limits, as well. The problem is determining how much of what they're testing is, in fact, "intelligence" and if you can (or should) try eliminating learned responses, not to mention filtering out cultural expectations of what intelligence is. <shrugs>

edited 22nd Dec '13 3:42:00 AM by Euodiachloris

Since no one has ever definitively defined what "intelligence" is, or even convincingly demonstrated that any such construct exists within people's heads, there appears to be no single thing to measure.

Yup: for example... where do you draw the line? Spacial awareness is testable. As is hand-eye coordination. Where does one stop and the other start? Does either count as "intelligence"? Or, just autonomic processing? How much of that is "intelligence", anyway?

The questions chase each other like a dog after its own tail. -_-