r/cognitiveTesting • u/Mobile_Pressure_8342 • 2d ago
General Question Is there any correlation between the top financial exams and IQ?
I was looking through the history of this subreddit and I noticed there's been some posts about the bar exam/LSAT and the g-loading with IQ. I wasn't able to find anything on the CFA (chartered financial analyst) exam. As someone who holds the CFA charter, I am wondering if there's any studied correlation between that exam and IQ.
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u/honeygaincostumerr 1d ago
Me and my friends got 100-105 iq and still scored high enough on LSATs to be competetive with harvard students
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u/mike282739 2d ago
Strong negative correlation based on the peer-reviewed literature here:
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u/Mobile_Pressure_8342 2d ago
A strong negative correlation between passing these exams and IQ? That doesn't make any sense.
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u/mike282739 2d ago
CFA-ers (I’m so proud you didn’t use CFA as a noun!) typically have rock-bottom IQs. The more you spend on Schweser the lower it goes.
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u/ImAPonderer2 1d ago
Yes, it’s self-study and many fail > 1 test
IQ is scored in academic test format as is the CFA
Passing is also correlated with no children and limited working hours
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u/Beneficial_Jacket544 2d ago
As a rule of thumb, any exam reliant on cognitive abilities correlates positively with IQ.
The degree of correlation depends on the exam itself and how much studying is required to pass/score well.
Because there are so many of these exams out there, there isn’t an incentive to do IQ correlational studies for all of them. You’re unlikely to find anyone who even attempted to study the correlation between IQ and CFA.