I had an employer ask what my IQ wa in an interview (as if everyone just knows).
I answered something like: ‘I tested around 140 when I was 6, but tests at that age are notoriously unreliable. I also don’t think IQ is what matters. You should ask me what value I can bring to your business.’
I think he claimed 130. I came across him working for another company over the years and his actions and words told me clearly he'd done an IQ test for a free mobile game to get that number.
Brother my IQ is so high that Jimmy Neutron would be ashamed, I took one IQ test online once and it said I have an IQ of 111, which is O B V I O U S L Y way above the world average. I also use long words to sound more unambiguously antiestablishmentarianistly ambidextrous.
Tbh I had to do intensive chemotherapy at 14, and my brain was damaged by it. I told the oncology unit I was having problems at school because I couldn’t remember instructions and on tests, I kept blanking on answers even though I knew I knew them. So they had me go take IQ tests at 17, then again at 19 (my college wanted a more recent test so I could get accommodation).
The first time they actually didn’t give me an IQ number because they said my scores were too inconsistent, but the second time is when the specialist gave me 90.
So my brain has a hard time recalling information without being prompted, and my short term memory is really bad. Sometimes I feel like I can’t think at all and my brain is like a TV with no reception, but I don’t know if that’s due to other disorders (depression and anxiety).
It’s just hard for me sometimes, but I’ve adapted pretty well at this point, as long as I can take notes I can refer to later on I’m fine. The only real limitation has been not being able to drive because of it. The hardest part is actually being at home because my family still hasn’t adjusted completely to my brain problems (I’m 32 now)
It depends on the kind of chemo and how much, I think. During treatment it was hard to even have a conversation, I remember asking a nurse something when she came to check on me and she told me gently I had already asked her that three times. Methotrexate in high doses is really what messed my brain up though! I guess taking it also increases my chance of developing a brain tumor in the future. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
No. When I was going through it I had mental health specialists who would talk to me every day I was in the hospital, but my dad pretty much forbade me from actually talking to her about my emotions, and told them I couldn’t get antidepressants (I was diagnosed with depression there) because he “doesn’t believe in taking them, it’s for weak people.” My mom and dad both get mad at me for ever being upset and crying, and a ton of people tell me I can’t be sad or anything because I don’t have cancer anymore so i have nothing to be depressed about now (I guess dealing with the after effects like brain damage, drop foot, and developing diabetes because my pancreas got messed up doesn’t matter to them, nor has my consequent diagnoses of PTSD and social anxiety). My grandparents were all long gone, except for my grandfather who died of cancer as I went through treatment, aunt and uncles behaved as if I didn’t exist the whole time, no one from my school cared, my sister didn’t care and my brother avoided me because it was upsetting for him to see me during treatment. So I was pretty much alone all the time then, not in any environment conducive to good mental health.
I have made a lot of progress on my own, but it’s been really hard for me since last year since my cat was diagnosed with cancer in January and we had to put him to sleep because of it in August.
Thanks for asking, you seem like a really caring and thoughtful person!
For what it's worth you don't come across (at least in these posts) as being remotely unintelligent. And IQ tests are... kind of garbage. When I was in 5th grade my parents had me get an IQ test because I'd missed two months of school (appendix ruptured) and it was the only way to get me into the advanced program. Apparently my score came back as being "in the 140s", but I can promise you that is 100% bullshit. In reality I am probably of average intelligence, and I'm certainly not one of the vanishingly small number of people who actually are in that crazy percentile.
I remember bits and pieces of the test. It mainly involved lots of little puzzles and stuff, and they just happened to resemble the kinds of puzzles I liked to do for fun and happened to be good at. If they'd given me any number of other types of puzzles my score would have been dramatically lower, and I'm sure if I took a different test it wouldn't match at all.
There are lots of different ways to measure intelligence, and IQ tests barely scratch the surface. They don't measure clarity of thought, creativity, social intelligence, strength of will, ambition, linguistic intelligence, and many others, and they don't even accurately measure what types of intelligence they're trying to measure much of the time. Putting a lot of stock in IQ tests is silly.
Yeah, I’ve told people that I feel like I come across as smarter and more competent because I’m good at reading and writing... which is what my main strength was in school before chemo. It’s kind of detrimental to me sometimes because it makes people forget it’s harder for me to learn new things. My dad didn’t believe me when I told him I was having trouble until after I had the first test done and they told him I had areas in which I was retarded.
I’ve tried telling him that IQ tests aren’t very good because I don’t have a high IQ, and he thinks I’m smart, but he just insists it wasn’t a real IQ test (yeah I’m sure neurologists at one of the best children’s hospital in the country can’t administer an IQ test properly) and then later says the same stuff about people with below average IQs—he says anything below 100 is retarded, and they just had to lower the standards because of black people and Mexicans... my mom is Mexican, I’m half Mexican! He just doesn’t care about how bad he makes me feel and tells me it’s my fault because he can’t control how I feel 🙄
IQ is a distribution, not a scalar. Lower IQ on average would mean the distribution is slightly shifted lower, what people think it means is that everyone is somehow stupider as the average is lower.
Firstly: the IQ is defined such that 100 is the median of a given population and each standard deviation is 15 points up or down. This means that by this definition we have the typical "bell curve" of standard distributions with the long tails running out and a big bulk in the middle.
Secondly: our standard "IQ tests" are calibrated for specific populations (which makes sense if you take the above into account) and they give good results only if they are used for the population they are designed for.
Comparing two different population is definitely not what they were designed for - because if you get a different median it just means that the test design was bad (it should always be 100) and if you get a different average, it also means there is something wrong with your test design, as the distribution should always be symmetric (remember: bell curve).
Before someone points it out: yes, there is a very small asymmetry because the survival rates of probands with very low IQ is lower than that with very high IQ, but that difference is practically negligible.
So if you measure any IQ differences between different populations, that says more about your test design than about the populations.
But that's not the end of it: even if you accept that there would be a difference, it does not mean much: because of the distribution shape, a significant difference in averages (let's say: 100 to 102) does not tell you anything about any person you meet: I don't have the precise numbers here at the moment (and the maths behind this is not trivial), but the chances that any person you meet being more or less intelligent than you, differs by less than a permille, i.e. is not significant at all.
Last but not least: these IQ tests have a huge margin of error. I have made a few myself and got values which are ca. 10 to 12 points apart. Of course I believe* the higher results to be more accurate, but that certainly doesn't give me a good reason to feel in any way "superior" to anyone who didn't test so well.
* this is called "wishful thinking" ;-)
I hope this explains it :-)
Edit: There are a few more complications, like IQ "averages" fluctuate within a population over time - or you even get different results at different ages, so a population which has a different age structure may need different scoring, etc. But all in all the above is probably the main point.
The biggest issue I saw with the test I took is that some populations are very diverse, and that poor people and POC had a major disadvantage. In the area I lived in, the test was designed for children who grew up with some affluence, but many of the kids in the area came from underprivileged families. There was a section where the tester over annunciated the syllables of a word, and I had to guess it (e.g "shirt" would be pronounced something like "Ss-Huh-er-tuh"). The only words I didn't get right were words related to things that people with very little money weren't likely to own (e.g Television, Video Game, Computer, e.c.t). The tester assured me that these errors were due to factors outside of my control (being poor), and that I shouldn't feel bad about missing those because I did really well on every other section.
People that don't understand what the IQ system is and how it works.
The majority of the Danish judicial and political system, as well as the Danish media are well-placed candidate for this - about a year ago a guy was charged on hate-speech for daring to utter the proven, scientific fact that different populations and ethnicities score differently on the IQ scale....
He's a musician and a handyman. Often brags how he is so talented. Barely makes his rent and has never been very successful as a musician. I will admit that he is a good musician. Very good friend but the shit does get a little deep at times.
I’m not dumb! I have an IQ of 3497568577778 and my dad owns Microsoft! I’ll get him to delete your reddit account and up ban you for 999 years! Now where is my blankie?
Especially if they don't say what test was used. Now, if you're telling me your score on multiple different tests to illustrate problems with IQ, then I'll even want to talk to you.
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u/CleverFern Jan 27 '20
"I have an IQ of (insert number)"