I have a lot of trouble with the pictures on IQ tests. It there a trick or does my mind just not get it?


For example:



What is the correct answer? I picked the third one because the colors are reversed across the center point (purple green) and because the color and shape are reversed across the vertical center line (square grey dk grey).

Is the entire shape to be seen as one big square or the 4 squares in order? If they are in order are they left right or up down?

Anyway in spite of thinking that I got most all the questions correct I "only" scored a 142.

What is your score? (sorry about the adds at the end)

http://web.tickle.com/tests/uiqnew/

When I joined the Marines in 1971, it measured 141 in the GCT score. Since then, I've not worried much about it.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

I also scored a 142. It turns out I missed one as a result of quickly reading the question. The average result on that test is around 112. If there was a representative distribution of test takers and if people did not cheat, the average should be 100 (by the definition of IQ). I haven't had a real IQ test since I was in 6th grade. It was 138 back then, but who knows how it evolved over the years.

Perhaps it is a Lake Woebegon IQ test . . . where all the children are above average. <GRINS>

Since it is Internet based, you don't suppose there might be some self-selection going on?

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

I took a different test and got somewhere in the low 130ies (don't remember exactly). The linked one might be a hair too easy?

So what is the answer to the picture question???

Last I took an official one I think I was 128 or something.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

I would have picked the 3rd one for that question. I don't have time to take the test right now though, I'll do it for you later. I should be studying for midterm and sleeping.

I hope you don't mind if I say that I think IQ tests are silly. There's just no way that a single set of indices can measure on an absolute scale how relatively intelligent all people are. It is the kind of thing that is simply unquantifiable, no matter how long and how diligently various testmakers have been trying to quantify it.

For a much more detailed and well-researched discussion of this issue, from someone with more authority on statistics than me, I highly recommend Stephen J. Gould's wonderful book, "The Mismeasure of Man," really a collection of essays which all relate to ridiculous ways in which various people from different places and time periods have tried to use science or scientific methods to prop up unjustifiably methods of ranking some people as 'better' or 'worse' than others on some kind of intellectual scale. (Unfortunately, often with a racist agenda.)

I think that people generally have many different strengths, abilities, talents and areas of expertise, experience or education. A single number can never hope to capture the complexity of a person's intelligence, but having tests like this promotes the idea that it can. I guess I'm saying- don't be upset that you 'only' scored whatever on the test. You're much smarter than the test can tell you and probably much dumber, too, in some way- no IQ number defines you.

And yes, the answer is the third one.

I got 135...a "Visual Mathematician"...interesting, I could never have "visually" answered those math problems, and I thought I had guessed on some of those pattern questions!

Maybe I'm more of a "Visual guesser"?? -- you know how they teach you to guess by eliminating just one choice!

By the way, how do you find the answers w/o paying $12.95?

3rd one... as per your reasoning.