Intelligence has always been a source of wonder and marvel. Why do some people perform better at some tasks than others? Some people are partial towards maths, while some can learn a 2500 speech by heart! Some are super street smart, while some can solve complex formulae to get to some mathematical conclusion faster than others.
What is the basis of intelligence? Apart from genetics, education, and exposure to things at a young age, some people can practice certain things at a young age consistently to remember. Have you observed how young children pick up a language faster than adults? There are so many factors that determine intelligence.
How can you get a basic idea about how intelligent a person is? Many scientists and psychologists wanted to know, hence, they came up with basic intelligence measuring tests where there were two aspects. A general intelligence measuring test and specific intelligence tests. The general one is common to everyone and has standard exercises to get an idea about your intelligence. To get an idea about this, check out IQ-Global-Test.
Types of Intelligence
Long back, intelligence was thought to be of two types only. One is practical intelligence, which is about street smarts or survival intelligence. The other is knowledgeable intelligence. The concept was predominant across ages until people started questioning where talents, partiality for language, and other aspects came from.
So, intelligence was found to be of various types. This included linguistic, logico-mathematical, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. This was a breakthrough, as different types of intelligence came up and people could find out which they had. This helped them find a good direction for pursuing their careers. Many people were guided well, and the craze for IQ tests was rampant.
They found out about geniuses who seemed to be wired for higher intelligence in a field through their high IQs. The great names in any field had specific higher IQs, and this was documented. Young geniuses whose IQ was high were bumped up a few grades and some even got direct entry into colleges.
Tests for measuring intelligence:
1. Binet-Stanford Tests
IQ tests were actually developed properly by two psychologists Binet and Simon who constructed an intelligence scale. This test had a very easy process and soon got immensely popular on a global scale. It was easy to conduct thus allowing for mass testing.
A psychologist from Stanford later worked on it and rectified a few aspects and made the Stanford-Binet IQ test. He said the intelligence factor always is a function of the subject’s mental age and chronological age.
He proposed that the quotient of mental age and chronological age multiplied by 100 should be the way IQ is calculated.
2. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale
Later David Wechsler came up with a way of measuring intelligence for adults called the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. He even later made one for children. This test was far better than the above one as it took other factors into consideration. WAIS was also based on a standardization graph. This form of analysis helped analysts understand how the average score was distributed across a sample number of people.
3. Culture-Fair Tests
Charles Spearman said clearly that cognitive tasks are performed based on the g factor and this is what was measured by intelligence tests. G stands for general intelligence tests and such IQ tests are limited only to finding that out.
One cannot gauge other types of intelligence with this test. He said IQ tests can help you predict how smart the person is with cognitive tasks and that is all.
Also, the genetic factors contribute significantly to the IQ of a person and these tests don’t take that into question. Hence, Cattell incorporated this aspect too and made the Culture-Fair Intelligence Test. He said that general intelligence actually can be divided into two parts: fluid intelligence which is all about logic and solution-finding, and crystallized intelligence which is about using street-smartness and experience. He incorporated this into his tests and this was also preferred by the people.
Applications of IQ tests.
While the ethical standpoint remains strong against hiring people or admission of students to colleges based on these tests, there are some good aspects of this test. Geniuses are confirmed through these tests. There might be people who may require additional educational interventions and different academic environments due to a lesser IQ and this can be arranged from the beginning to give them more comfort.
Also, the biggest shocking implication of performing IQ tests had to be that as time passes, the average IQ scores have been increasing. This is called the Flynn Effect and it shows that people are growing, cognitively and intelligently. This has been happening because of so many factors that it is almost groundbreaking!
Why should you take an IQ test?
IQ tests can be scary for sure, what if you score less! Does that mean you are less intelligent? Don’t let questions like that scare you. You can take an IQ test to figure out where you stand in cognitive functions. This helps you understand your strong and weak points. If you score a bit less in the logic tests, it means you can explore your creative talents more.
This can be used to convince your interviewers about your specific talents. IQ tests aren’t the ultimate tests. It differs between ethnicities, countries, communities, and even genders! IQ tests should be treated as something to complement your abilities, they are not your ability.
So, taking an IQ test won’t do any harm. There are many websites that offer these services, not all can be authentic, so do a little digging into them and get your IQ test done.
Conclusion
IQ tests have been a subject of fascination as it is said to measure intelligence. Intelligence has always kept people in marvel. The concept of intelligence depends on so many factors that measuring it is always controversial. Measuring intelligence has so much depth to it that it is not easy to come up with the correct tests. So, don’t hesitate to take one, it would be a huge confidence booster!
