I Took an IQ Test to Find Out What it Actually Measures

I just took an IQ test and I am SO happy... Thank God it came back negative!

I took an IQ test once that had a time limit and there was a clock in the room. I don't like time pressure so I panicked and ended up with a not too bad but still very depressing score. They made me take another test and told me it wasn't timed, I did way better, was proud of myself. They actually lied to me, it was timed, but by not telling me I just got a way better score and still finished in time. So many factors as to why someone would get a bad or good result in a test.

The best way i heard IQ described is its like a combination of the acceleration of a car and its top speed. You can go a very distance from your starting point with a fast car that either accelerates quickly or has a high top speed but what really matters is the direction the car is going It doesnt matter how fast you are going if you are pointing the wrong direction.

Here’s the thing: I used to be a middle school music teacher and went through all the special education and teaching strategy classes. What they don’t tell you is that a student’s IQ generally predicts their success in a traditional classroom setting, and is honestly a pretty poor judgment of individual intelligence outside of that very specific environment. When I was still an observing teacher prior to student teaching, I was in a music classroom doing recorders and a non-verbal autistic student was participating. As soon as they started their ear training exercises, he was the only kid that got every note right in less than a second and would patiently wait for the class to catch up to him. He had perfect pitch and knew exactly what he was doing, but due to his communication skills he struggled in classrooms that were simply a whiteboard and a lecture. When you gave him a recorder in an open classroom though? He became an extremely gifted young musician who was having a ton of fun and learning a lot!

When I was 8 years old my primary school teacher was convinced that I was gifted because I was always the first to finish a test and because I often seemed to get bored in class. One day I was taken out of class to take an IQ test for this reason. I have no memories of the test itself and no one ever told ma what the conclusion was. Around the age of 15 it also became clear that I had ADHD, despite this I was still holding up in school and I started taking medication. I am now 19 years old and a few months ago my parents told me that I had scored below average on this IQ test in primary school. The primary school psychologist (that had tested me) had told my parents that I would certainly not be able to go to university. My interest in science grew as I got older and when I asked my math teacher last year if I would be capable of studying engineering he said I definitely was. I have now completed my first year at the university. I am convinced that such IQ tests do not tell the full story at all. I had concentration problems and when I was 8 in primary school I had no idea what kind of test I was even taking. Don't let some number distract you from your goals!

It's actually really interesting that the IQ test has a baseline relative to the average of all scores, which means it measures your intelligence relative to others & not some fixed constant.

That bit on motivation, training, test strategy, and anxiety hit the nail right on the head. It can be a very significant impact if all of those are in your favor or if they're working against you. I've been a good SAT-style (multiple choice, timed, reading/math/logic) tests ever since my elementary school started doing state level testing for school districts once a year way back when I was a kid. For me it was just a fun challenge and by the time I ran into standardized tests that caused other people to stress (PSAT, SAT, ACT, LSAT, multi-state bar exam) and actually mattered for some purposes, the "test" part of it was a walk in the park for me, and my only weaknesses were any actual knowledge gaps or making mistakes. Meanwhile I know folks who got immobilized by anxiety or just weren't used to the format had problems with the form of the test even if they had the knowledge down as well or better than me.

Your point on child nutrition/education is so important. Ive seen so many altright people on the internet make racist comments based on IQ difference for populations when in fact it just shows that those populations are not having their basic needs met properly.

I was born in '81. I still remember in my kindergarten class there was a poster on the wall that read "It's not your IQ, it's your I WILL". That has stuck with me as demonstrably true my entire life.

I had an IQ of 123 when I was a teenager. I call it the Henry Ford Intelligence Test, because it only measures you like a factory worker.

"Much more important is how you interact with and help those around you". The most brilliant statement in the entire video!!!

This video contains sooo much more, interesting stats and scary history events. Thanks Veritasium.

My father was a psychologist. Growing up, he regularly administered various IQ tests on me. I became quite competent at standardized testing. To this day, I discount the value of these tests as I know I effectively cheated on them throughout the rest of my life. I learned test taking strategies and practiced the common types of questions so I am able to identify patterns of questions/answers favored in each test, which positively impacted my results compared to many others who did not have this experience.

Here's a (depressing) little fact about me. Some decade ago, when I was 12-13, I volunteered to take an IQ test at my school, and was generally considered a 'gifted kid' with outstanding grades in a lot of subjects, as well as an appetite for knowledge that shocked my teachers at the time - Books would be devoured in a matter of hours, I never studied and aced everything anyways because, as it turns out, what I did on my free time (devouring random wikipedia articles, essentially) was effectively studying. Then, my parents divorced, my grandparents and dogs died, and I went through a maaaajor depressive episode lasting, well, it's still going over a decade later, but the worst of it was age 14-19, where I was actively suicidal. For 'fun', I took a new IQ test when I was turning 20. My IQ when I was ~13? 144. My IQ after a major depressive episode a few years later? 106. My IQ today, another few years after that? 112. I don't want to blame depression or anything like that, but I do think it played a very large factor in killing my motivation for study - and notably, it killed a lot of my memory. I couldn't tell you a thing I did age 14-19 with any level of real accuracy other than scream at my divorced mother twice and moving house five times.

Man you knocked this out of the park. You really gave this its fair shake. I wish the public discourse covered subjects this thoroughly. You continue to raise the bar.

I took an IQ test (as an adult) as part of ADHD testing. I’ve always been very into school, I’m in a master’s program right now, absolutely love learning, reading, writing, research, etc. I love learning random histories, facts, words, concepts, etc. Yet I was taken aback by some of the questions! One was “who wrote Alice in Wonderland?” How the hell does that show my intelligence? It’s so clearly eurocentric, even US-centric (at least the version I took… so much for “objectivity”). There are so many brilliant people who might’ve never had an experience where they could name the author of a book, or even never focused their attention on random facts like that, who would get those questions wrong, thereby reducing their score (I admit I don’t know a lot about how the tests are scored and normalized). But, clearly, it goes to show these tests can be arbitrary and designed for certain populations. They don’t predict what people can really do and how they think.

Given how most schools are run, I feel like using IQ tests to indicate school success is a lot like saying "If you're good at taking tests, we can determine that you are good at taking tests."

One of the worst things that happened to me in my childhood was scoring well on an IQ test as a small child. Severe ADHD and no executive function led to a lot of shame because people had something to point to to “prove” I was just being lazy. Even after I was diagnosed with ADD at the age of ten. Edit: I turned 10 in 1981 (just for perspective). Neurodivergence in the 70s and 80s was just called being contrary.

You summarized a good chunk of what I learned during my masters degree program for curriculum and instruction.

I remember at age 3 I used to completely disassemble my older sisters full size bike, after seeing my dad use his tools, mom caught me and said “ you put that back together right this second”, made me feel as though it was wrong as opposed to encouraging my curiosity. Think we all have great potential if nurtured properly.