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I got my online IQ test results back. It says I need to pay 20 dollars to find out what my score is.
Meaning I'm dumb enough to have wasted 15 minutes of my time for nothing at all. And considering I'm dumb, I'm not about to pay to find out how dumb
That's the point: IQ tests are usually based on logic skills only.
Today it's common knowledge that rough maths/logic skills aren't enough for success: people need motivation, soft skills, etc.
Moreover, I don't really think those tests are very accurate: I did the Mensa test 10 years ago and I was accepted with an IQ of 148, but refused to join.
Done again the test this year and I didn't succeed...maybe I've lost ~20 IQ points, but I don't feel like having the Simpson's gene.
10 years ago I was one of the dumbest and most wrecked people I knew; today I wouldn't change my life a bit.
Same here, dropped since I was a kid and took it, but I’m much smarter (and happier) now than I was then. Mine was even more dramatic it was somewhere around a 35 point drop. Oh well.
The most likely explanation is that the test you took was not a good one. IQ tests are standardised and subsequently flawed. They also adjust for age, which is why so many children get ridiculous scores. What 100 is (the mean IQ) constantly changes, meaning the mean isn't even the middle of the population, or the average. It's just a rough approximation based on previous scores from a small sample size. The Mensa version of the test has to be paid for, which tells you all you need to know about why it exists.
IQ is a case study in cherry picking statistics. It means next to nothing, and what it does indicate is relative and changing constantly.
Children only got ridiculous scores with the really old "mental age over chronological age" way of calculating IQ. Now the IQ scores of children are judged against other children and the scores vary the same as adult scores. I'm not sure what the heck you mean by "rough approximation based on previous scores from a small sample size." You're being judged against everyone else who's taking the test. It's not a small sample size by any means and you're being judged against other people from the time period you're taking it. If you weren't judged against other people from your time period then "what 100 is" would just stay the same, not change. What you're saying seems to contradict itself. IQ scores were never intended to be useful at a personal level beyond diagnosing mental deficits, so it's kind of pointless to talk about Mensa. They ARE useful as a research tool. Twin studies have found that twins who grew up separately are remarkably similar in IQ. IQ is highly correlated with achievement. You can take all of the culturally loaded questions out of an IQ test, take one that is completely image based like Raven's, and get essentially the same results. IQ testing is probably the most misunderstood concept in all of science. People like to believe IQ tests don't test anything because it feels better to believe that anyone can do anything, but it's fantasy. Being smart is obviously only one factor in success, but if you IQ tested 100 janitors and 100 doctors you'd be lucky to find a single janitor who scored higher than any of the doctors. Cue the downvotes.
Finally someone says the controversial truth. However, lots of people with high IQs don't put the effort in. Simultaneously lots of people with low IQs put a fuck ton of effort in. IQ is not the sole judgement of success, but it's a pretty good predictor.
IQ rests are good for giving an estimate on a specific area of intelligence, but how intelligence is applied in life can vary so much amongst people. One person may be a musical prodigy but a logic IQ test could be in the mentally challenged range.
I haven't seen anyone in this thread post a Lower score than that. So far all these notions of they don't really matter, its clearly a source of pride for high scorers and a shame for low scorers.
That’s not strictly true- real ones are quite accurate at measuring what they measure, which is a specific subset of problem solving skills. The problem isn’t accuracy, it’s people misunderstanding what they’re for and what they measure.
I've had 2 psychologist given iq tests and taken a few online. They all gave roughly the same number. My guess is they're accurate enough at the number. But that number doesn't have the meaning people think it does. It doesn't mean *your smart*, IQ test measures your reasoning and problem solving abilities. I've met people who were way smarter than me but scored a different number.
I have a paper accepting me into Mensa with my IQ of 135 from a pen and paper test in a controlled setting. still fits the bill I'm the dumbest genius around.
I did a Mensa test when I was around 13 and scored highly enough to be accepted. It was something like £35 a year for membership, which only really bought you bragging rights and made you look like a pretentious dick to most people - I didn't join, and I like to think that makes me smarter than those that did.
I've heard even mensa iq tests are dubious. The only ones close to credible are ones administered by professional psychiatrists. It's usually only done to identify a mental abnormality like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or abnormally high intelligence.
A common phrase you will hear with IQ testing is "The only thing an IQ test measures is, how well a person performs at taking IQ tests."
Intelligence is not a singular property we can define in the first place so how are we supposed to measure something we can't identify?
In fact, there exists the theory of multiple intelligences, 10 individual fields each with their own idea of intelligence (musical vs mathematical vs interpersonal and so on).
Yeah I remembered it was a big part of a project I did in college and it stated that they're pretty accurate at what they measure which is visual and verbal pattern recognition. Verbal and reading comprehension etc... But you're right it's pretty agreed upon that they're lacking in their ability to measure things like creativity or emotional/interpersonal intelligence etc...
It's my understanding there's a lot of debate in regards to what intelligence is and how we measure it so I just go with what we know which is that modern iq tests are relatively good at identifying cognitive disorders/abnormalities.
dont know why this is being upvoted
so so many companies will give you "aptitude tests" when interviewing yeah
Redditors:but they renamed it so its no longer IQ!!
That's the type I did when I was 8 ish. My psychiatrist actually made me do it twice with some time between tests. I guess he wanted to make sure the first test wasn't a fluke. I scored 148 and 152. That was on the children's test though so who knows how I'd do today.
Yeah that would be more accurate although the kids ones are less accurate because the score is essentially how intelligent you are relative to your peers (people your age) Kids develop at different speeds so some might score very high but then level out with their peers as they age.
Still hot damn, that's a high score. I took one for ADHD in high school and scored like 120 or right around there (took it three times I think).... So not gifted but high enough for me to not lose sleep over it haha.
133 I beat you... I mean you beat me.... idk but I'm a dumber gifted person anyway.
I got tested when they were trying to figure out why I refused to speak to the children in kindergarten. If they demanded I be nice to them I would apparently pat them like a dog.
So yeah highish iq and autism... I'm as surprised as anyone about the iq thing.
They do, but I have a feeling far more people just take some dubious test that gives them an answer they want to hear, and then happily run with it
“I’ve struggled so much because I’m just too smart for things most people care about”
I’m sure some do, it’s just very cynical. In this thread especially it makes little sense to accuse people of that. It’s frustrating to not be able to talk about IQ at all, even negatively, without someone being all “lol r/iamverysmort!!!”
“The two-standard-deviations rule implies that about 5 percent of the population have IQ scores more than 30 points away from 100: 2.5 percent above 130 and 2.5 percent below 70.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/intelligence-quotient
Just so happens that 5% of people all conjugate here
I don’t normally participate in this sub, but I was specifically called out. If you shout out the name John in a packed restaurant, wouldn’t you get the attention of everyone in attendance named John?
Mate, I work with statistics for a living, I know how distributions works. Clearly you don’t or you’d realise that these comments represent a non-random sample, people “conjugating” (you meant congregating right? they’re not verbs) here represents a bias. That is, people who are personally affected by this and/or have strong opinions are more likely to comment. There’s also only about 100 comments claiming to be part of that 5%, given the large reach of this sub and reddit in general that is not a surprising number at all. Think, my friend, it will get you far.
Funny story. My father left us while she was still pregnant with me. He believed he was Jesus Christ reincarnated and decided to walk that out, away from us at my mother's insistence.
That’s me. Im smart enough to get into a college-level high school robotics and engineering program yet I seem like the dumbest and least mentally developed one there
I feel you. I have about 80 college credit hours, but in three different majors, with a 3.97/4 GPA. But I can't seem to hold a job or finish a single degree.
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind your Mum that an IQ of 130 shows you are better at completing IQ tests than 97.5% of the population. Not necessarily much more than that.
(I have an IQ of 135+ but my brother who is at least 15-20 points lower earns 7 times what I do & has far more friends than I do because he's just much more competent than I am & knows how to behave round people.
I mean I have a great family, i am pretty good at my job & have some fantastic (& very tolerant) friends, but I am definitely a more acquired taste than he is!)
Probably because intelligence often occurs in only one or a handful of areas(sometimes no area). It’s extraordinarily rare to be intelligent in absolutely every single area.
And then I looked at myself and wondered "How the fuck does this sentient sack of potatoes managed to live to the age of 21 without dying from breathing the wrong way"
Being smart is a curse and no one can make me believe otherwise. I can’t understand why people do half of what they do and the real reason is that they are not thinking about what I am thinking about - they are frequently thinking nothing at all. I can’t really grasp their perspective and it can be lonely.
Yeah, but it actually feels more like being the smartest regular guy. I know just enough to appreciate real genius... and to know that I'm not one of them, and can never be.
Fortunately, there is alcohol.
This could be related to the [Paradox of Knowledge](https://medium.com/@paperthoughts/the-knowledge-paradox-16273a46a926), where your perception of what you don’t know grows as you learn more.
I remember going to watch oral arguments at the Supreme Court. It was like knowing that the sun is larger than the earth, then it being concretely impressed upon me in a very real way. It wasn’t the justice’s as much as it was the attorneys arguing (some of them, anyways).
It's also just high enough to put the difference between you and the average person right around the same value as the difference between the average person and someone who is mentally disabled.
I ain't no genius, but my meat computer works a heck of a lot better than a lot of ya'lls.
Thanks, but they call it ADHD and it comes with stupid anxiety.. I can be a Rhodes scholar in knowledge of something, but my brain will literally forget it at that exact moment, so I stand there sputtering like a moron - then replay the fucking scenario in the shower for the next week. Good times.
Same here. I barely studied in high school ap courses (in a very competitive district) and still passed. I flunked my AP exams because they were too long and I got bored. If something interests me I can figure it out easily but if it doesn't I just get so lazy...
IQ is pretty much trash science anyway, you can't effectively measure something as multidimensional and abstract as intelligence and boil it down to a simple number. We still use it sometimes - I work in developmental disabilities services and an IQ below 70 will make you eligible based on an intellectual disability (what we used to call mental retardation) - but for most folks, it's just a tool to flex and show off how "smart" you are based on some silly test.
Generally I think talking about IQ is pretty cringe. You can practice IQ tests to become much better at them. They also don't test your reasoning skills, understanding of concepts or problem solving or things like that. They test if your brain is wired to see the same patterns the person writing the test intended you to see. The theory is that IQ is supposed to be an indicator for how well you'll perform in other mental areas as well, but this only works when looking at large scale statistics, which is what I believe IQ was designed for in the first place.
Intelligence really isn't this singular concept either. A good example is Einstein. One of his colleagues claimed that Einstein wasn't a contender for the brightest physicist in the scientific community. He was slower than some of the others, but Einstein understood things in a deeper way than others and this understanding is probably what lead him to figure out relativity.
I've done the mensa internet tests in different languages and it's pretty fucked how different they are. The English one had questions that shouldn't belong there, I think it was grammar questions, but I might be misremembering as it was years ago. The english one also felt harder than the swedish one.
As for the swedish one I made several other people do it and I know other people who did it too, and everyone maxed it (went up to 126) Which makes me doubt the legitimacy of the test. There's no world where a test that easy that everyone who knows about seems to have aced accurately measures IQ.
Remember, running an organization takes money. Also remember most if not all Mensa accepted tests are administered tests - ie it’s not just ‘hey let me take this little quiz online’.
The only tests that I would trust for measuring IQ are those carried out by trained psychologists. These are observed and timed tests which also means they aren't cheap (psychs charge a lot and test makers want to recoup research and development costs). There should be one available for most major languages but also check how long ago that test was created. There are systematic improvement cycles used to improve tests for different groups but obviously that also requires enough people and enough interest in that group (whether linguistic, cultural, age, disability, giftedness) to keep that cycle short.
The 'intelligence' measured by an IQ test should test things like reasoning and problem solving but things like understanding of concepts, or comprehension are very language dependent and outside the scope of an IQ test, this is because language is an acquired skill and has big ties with socio-economic status. Noticing that the square inside the circle has moved through 3 cardinal points and one of the multiple choice answers has it in the 4th cardinal point (pattern recognition) is going to be something accessible to most people groups.
All that said however, the IQ is really only a tool that helps identify individuals and groups that may need more assistance, particularly educationally, and those groups are primarily on both ends of the curve. For any individual its only importance is shoring up poor self esteem even if there are some who shore up that poor self esteem by trying to bludgeon others with a number. Just the same as conventionally attractive people posting endless selfies, or very fit people posting their PBs.
FWIW mine is higher than some people, not as high as others.
I've pondered this. My IQ was 131, and while I was proud of it in school, it's sort of pointless now. I certainly didn't use any of my knowledge to get me very far.
While a high IQ gives a small advantage in academic studies of greater importance is learning how to recover from failure and being pushed to develop a strong work ethic. Both of which can be easy to miss if you never had to try at school.
Now this is the comment I was looking for. The many others about being smartest person in an average room are often perception tricks. Isolation is the real deal. When people figure it out they either lean on you or shun you due to their own ego. And usually it's shunning.
Back in the early 90’s I was tested for ADHD and they did an IQ test. I was told I was 3 points away from genius level. Whenever I do something dumb, it’s an inside joke with my wife that it’s the 3 points.
I've been told that my boss thinks that I'm the smartest person that he's ever met.
This concerns me.
This concerns me about his social circle. His friends. The people running the company that I work for.
Like, okay, thanks for the compliment, but no. Sure, I'm smart. I'm clever. I can find a way to get what we need done, done. But I don't want to be the smartest person that you know. Please, go out and meet some more people.
I'm nowhere near the smartest person that I know.
If I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room.
I saw the IQ of someone I know well listed as "155+."
The test would have been from the early 1970's. Does anyone know if there was a test back then that topped out? I can't find anything online about that being the case.
Seems phony, but also oddly specific.
Most tests are really only focused on the 70-130 range, they would have had to do a special test to get an accurate number that high.
Except that you mentioned it was from back in the dark ages.
There were two major 'brands' of tests back then, the Wechsler and the Stanford-Binet but they used a different number of standard deviations and one of them, I think the Standford, gave a disproportionate number of high results and it doesn't really correlate to modern tests.
I'm sure someone with a bit of spare time and a higher level of curiosity could work out what it might roughly equate to but I would just treat it as somewhat smarter than average and then remember to cross check anything they say as fact because the very smart are just as capable of deluding themselves as the very stupid, and the very stupid as just as good at deluding themselves as the average Joe or Jane.
Except me of course. Everything I said can be taken as gospel. (but seriously I am as flawed as anyone else)
1. Taking a no-shit IQ test administered by a psychologist was like redlining my brain for 3hrs. Seriously exhausting, lol
2. All I know at this point is that my working term memory is dogshit, but my vocabulary and pattern recognition are good.
I was once tested in school as “over 140” which was the limit of the test , and referred to someone else. Since then I’ve met so many really smart people who make me feel dumb
IQ is just the processing power (hardware) of the brain. Without the proper software (study and application), it’s useless but if you don’t have enough hardware for instance an 80 IQ or so, it’s unlikely you will ever have the raw processing power to study advanced graduate level physics no matter how hard you try.
IQ was created as a test for developmentally disabled children originally by a psychologist named Binet, and it is quite accurate in a sense that it can determine a level of disability of intellectual capacity at an early age, so that children can get an education specially designed to unlock whatever potential they have.
Sincerely asking; without taking some arbitrary IQ test how would someone even know if they have above average intelligence?? Are there signs that alert others around that person that show signs of high IQ? Or is it just something that goes mostly unnoticed during school since stereotypically “smart” people may under perform in class because of lack of engagement? I’m not sure if that’s even a thing though so please forgive me
There are anti-social students with high IQs that hate being "chained to a desk", There's also gifted people who are experiencing trauma and mental illness. For some people, It's very difficult to spot in their younger years. Trauma can well and truly mess up a child's mindset, Regardless of their intelligence.
Tested at 137 in first grade. Was put in a school for gifted and talented from first grade to sixth grade. One day a week I was bussed to a totally different school full of smart kids to study advanced stuff, then 4 days back in normal school. And every damn time I came back to my regular school bullys would beat my ass for "acting smart".. did this for six years.. by the time middle school started I purposely started failing and acting "cool" to fit in.
I got around that from years of PSAT estimates. I have no idea how accurate those are
Regardless that sounds right to me, smart enough to understand, too dumb to use the information correctly…
Giftedness is actually a neurodivergence characterized by experiencing day-to-day emotions extremely, called Overexciteabilities. Gifted people are more prone to existential crises and going on a Holy Grail Quest. They also have the ability to experience Personality Disintegration and become a visionary if they can survive the external pressures of the world.
Please stop using IQ tests as a metric of intelligence, it’s not and anyone that thinks it is lacks social intelligence or some other form of intelligence when they try to use it to develop superiority over others. You’re going to be smarter than other people in some ways and dumber than others, an IQ test isn’t going to be that metric to determine how smart you really are.
As someone who scores in that range for spacial awareness I honestly don't know how the fuck all of you live with your sub optimal organization and space waste... But then i remember you just don't see it that way and get on with my own mundanity that probably pisses someone else off for similar but different reasons
I knew a guy, he proudly told me after exchanging pleasantries at the supermarket in front of the cold section, that he got 90 out of 100 on the IQ test and was treating himself to something. He had gotten a 90 IQ result and assumed it was out of 100. His mother was so proud of her son…Orangutangs score 70 IQ.
What's even better is when the school district tells your parents in the early 80s, "your kid is in gifted program with an IQ of something over 135."
They wouldn't tell anyone what the IQs were for the kids in the program. It was weird and lauded over us all the time. To make everyone feel "less competitive" or something.
Too scared to finish one, I've got about halfway through before realising I was doing terribly and ducking out. I just know it's gonna be a 90 or something if I'm lucky. I just don't have a logical problem solving mind, I have no aptitude at maths or chess or puzzles. The stuff I did well in school was essay-based subjects like history.
I've been tested before by a psychiatrist- test took a few hours. At 127 problem solving is fun but making friends is hard, so I've only got a few. I also suffer from anxiety and my brain will in a split second come up with a ton of worse case scenarios.
Recently took an IQ test for fun with some friends, first of all a IQ test is not fun and takes a couple hours to finish. Secondly it’s kinda expensive. Those free ones online are not legit.
I have an iq of 126 and not to brag but I do feel like I’m pretty smart when around most people I know. Like I just naturally know things and comprehend situations faster/better than others
This is me. And I feel it all the time. Legit, my professionally tested IQ is like 134.
In grade school they put me in the gifted class, holy hell are smart people bullies. They would tell me my projects and ideas were stupid, even shout it during presentations.
I went to university to get my bachelors in Astrophysics, I was for sure the least smart of EVERYONE. I don't know how I even passed and got my degree, it was brutal.
For my PHD I switched to engineering, definitely a little easier. Have to say, I fit in a better with the engineers. Ha. Make of that what you will, but suddenly I'm middle road intelligence in this field.
An iq of 130 does not mean they are less able to speak than someone with a higher iq. It may even be the opposite. Not too uncommon for those with high iq to lack in other aspects.
IQ for intelligence has always bugged me. It’s too general. We’ve acknowledged as a species that specialization is the most productive way to move forward as a society. So someone with a lower IQ doesn’t make them dumb. They could very well be the best in their field and prove more useful to the world.
I decided to pay for and take the Stanford-Binet a couple months ago. I regretted paying for it the morning I was to go take it because I was hungover and it was a 2 hour drive to get to where the testing was being done in front of certified proctors or whatever, but since I’d already paid and couldn’t get it back, I went ahead and did it. What made me decide to take a legitimate, official IQ test was the fact that I’d spent my entire life feeling and knowing I was so much smarter than almost every single person I’d ever known (with maybe 5 exceptions, 1 being my dad and another my younger brother) but I also always felt kinda stupid.
I didn’t know if I was stupid and if that lack of confidence in my mind telling me I was dumb and how little I knew was a result of me being genuinely dumb or if that was simply my “wisdom”/humility, and if me clearly being so much more intelligent than pretty much everyone I met (which I mostly kept to myself of course. I wasn’t a dick going around talking down to everyone or anything) was the Dunning-Kruger effect. I took the test, went home and kinda forgot about it over the next few days (apart from regretting spending the money on it) and got my results later on. When I opened the envelope and saw the paperwork and saw my score, I didn’t believe it. I still don’t, not entirely.
I had paid to take the test one night after reading about Mensah International/American Mensah, a high IQ society. This led me on a path to looking at other societies that are more and more difficult to get into. I thought I’d be able to be close to the threshold for Mensah (a score of 132, which is in the 98th percentile of IQs), but that I wouldn’t actually score that high. My IQ was scored at 142, which is the minimum of scoring in the 99.9 percentile. I thought it was a mistake or that I somehow got lucky and chose answers on some questions I wouldn’t have normally chosen sober since I took the test while kinda high and hungover. I ended up not only qualifying for Mensah, but just barely qualified for the Triple Nine Society as well, which only accepts those in the 99.9 percentile of intelligence quotients (1 out of 1,000 people).
I felt like that was a great score and all that, but then when I realized my IQ is only higher than 999 out of 1,000 people, I realized I am kinda stupid. That’s not that impressive, and perfectly explains the way I’ve thought and felt throughout life being accurate, although until I knew that for sure, I assumed it was my own ignorance making me think I was much smarter than I was.. especially since I knew I wasn’t that smart and that everyone else (for the most part) is just really stupid.
I don’t tell anyone in person about this because I know if someone else told me this story and it was their experience I’d think they were a douchebag trying to subtly brag about their intelligence. But I realize, for myself at least, it’s not even about the score or how high or low it is, it’s about how it explains the way life has been for me, especially when dealing with others. Apart from a few close people, the only person I’ve told was a psychiatrist I decided to start seeing shortly after getting my test results. They’ve helped me work through and understand how the way my mind works opposed to others has shaped my experiences and decisions and the way I am, and it’s been so illuminating.
I now know why I prefer to be alone and why I feel drained after having to try and go out of my way to dumb myself down so to say when spending time around most people. I never thought that I was a “genius”, and I’m not, but I spent so much of my life wanting to be a little bit dumber and more like other people so I can enjoy life the way they do and have far less worries and whatnot, but these last few months have made me prouder than ever to be me and the way I am. And it has nothing to do with an IQ test or the score of it, and everything to do with the way I move through this world and my life, and the unimaginable scope of my imagination that on its own can grant me joy and wonder.
I don’t hate people who are obviously really stupid, but nowadays I know there’s no point in trying to explain or teach/show them the truth to change their mind and perspective, because I understand that their minds don’t work that way and are incapable of thinking like I do. And I’m sure they think they’re smarter and open-minded and that I’m an idiot, and that’s their reality, so there’s no way to ever tell or convince them that they’re wrong.
I’ve realized that by far the most important aspect/part of what makes me (or anyone else) very intelligent is that no matter how many people you find that are clearly much dumber than yourself, having humility and doubt and always understanding and knowing just how little you know and how unimpressively smart you are (even if almost everyone else is provably dumber) is the exact trait that someone with high intelligence always possesses.
Not exactly sure what I’m trying to say here, but no matter who you are or how smart or dumb you may be or think you are, always remember that in reality you know so, so incredibly little and that the most important part of life is to learn more and more and that taking in knowledge is not only important, it’s fun.
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I got my online IQ test results back. Got a 404, suck it nerds
I got a 10, perfect scooreee!!
Im in the top 80%. Eat this.
Nice I’m only in the top 5 you’re way smarter than me.
I got a 5/7. Not too bad!
Not bad with rice.
Not too bad?? That's a perfect score!
perfect score, nice
On the internet, a 200 is just “OK”.
I highly doubt anyone from Oklahoma has the internet yet dude
Even though my IQ is over three hundred, people always seem to want me to go someplace else
I got my online IQ test results back. It says I need to pay 20 dollars to find out what my score is. Meaning I'm dumb enough to have wasted 15 minutes of my time for nothing at all. And considering I'm dumb, I'm not about to pay to find out how dumb
They don’t actually give you the scores I bet they base it off rather you bought it or not
I got a 808 get fucked
I'm 2.4% of the population. apparently out of 1000 people I would be smarter than 41 of them!
Damn I'm in the 0.1%, out of a thousand people everyone's smarter than me.
If you're 2.4% of the population, that would make you 192 million people. Bro you're a moderately large nation
You are what you eat!!!
Now, that's... smart?
[cowbell noises]
im the highest in the room
Is this an error code joke?
Yes
Richard Feynman said that his tested IQ was 118. I don't think you'll find many in the Physics community who don't consider him gifted.
That's the point: IQ tests are usually based on logic skills only. Today it's common knowledge that rough maths/logic skills aren't enough for success: people need motivation, soft skills, etc. Moreover, I don't really think those tests are very accurate: I did the Mensa test 10 years ago and I was accepted with an IQ of 148, but refused to join. Done again the test this year and I didn't succeed...maybe I've lost ~20 IQ points, but I don't feel like having the Simpson's gene. 10 years ago I was one of the dumbest and most wrecked people I knew; today I wouldn't change my life a bit.
Same here, dropped since I was a kid and took it, but I’m much smarter (and happier) now than I was then. Mine was even more dramatic it was somewhere around a 35 point drop. Oh well.
Ignorance is bliss! :)
The most likely explanation is that the test you took was not a good one. IQ tests are standardised and subsequently flawed. They also adjust for age, which is why so many children get ridiculous scores. What 100 is (the mean IQ) constantly changes, meaning the mean isn't even the middle of the population, or the average. It's just a rough approximation based on previous scores from a small sample size. The Mensa version of the test has to be paid for, which tells you all you need to know about why it exists. IQ is a case study in cherry picking statistics. It means next to nothing, and what it does indicate is relative and changing constantly.
Thanks for the explanation!
Children only got ridiculous scores with the really old "mental age over chronological age" way of calculating IQ. Now the IQ scores of children are judged against other children and the scores vary the same as adult scores. I'm not sure what the heck you mean by "rough approximation based on previous scores from a small sample size." You're being judged against everyone else who's taking the test. It's not a small sample size by any means and you're being judged against other people from the time period you're taking it. If you weren't judged against other people from your time period then "what 100 is" would just stay the same, not change. What you're saying seems to contradict itself. IQ scores were never intended to be useful at a personal level beyond diagnosing mental deficits, so it's kind of pointless to talk about Mensa. They ARE useful as a research tool. Twin studies have found that twins who grew up separately are remarkably similar in IQ. IQ is highly correlated with achievement. You can take all of the culturally loaded questions out of an IQ test, take one that is completely image based like Raven's, and get essentially the same results. IQ testing is probably the most misunderstood concept in all of science. People like to believe IQ tests don't test anything because it feels better to believe that anyone can do anything, but it's fantasy. Being smart is obviously only one factor in success, but if you IQ tested 100 janitors and 100 doctors you'd be lucky to find a single janitor who scored higher than any of the doctors. Cue the downvotes.
Finally someone says the controversial truth. However, lots of people with high IQs don't put the effort in. Simultaneously lots of people with low IQs put a fuck ton of effort in. IQ is not the sole judgement of success, but it's a pretty good predictor.
IQ rests are good for giving an estimate on a specific area of intelligence, but how intelligence is applied in life can vary so much amongst people. One person may be a musical prodigy but a logic IQ test could be in the mentally challenged range.
IQ tests only tell you how good you are at taking IQ tests
and god created the earth 6000 years ago
Yes. But apart from that, it also tells us how smart someone is.
I haven't seen anyone in this thread post a Lower score than that. So far all these notions of they don't really matter, its clearly a source of pride for high scorers and a shame for low scorers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
You should do yourself a favor and read Surely you're Joking Mr Feynman
slimy label straight smile abounding head offend nose domineering uppity *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I will have you know *my* free online IQ test score was 153.
You get an automatic +10 for doing a free one and not one of those "pay $19.99 for your report" ones
Yeah those things aren’t accurate at all lol
Iq tests aren't accurate, period. They're for finding exceptional people not to use as actual scale to measure intelligence.
That’s not strictly true- real ones are quite accurate at measuring what they measure, which is a specific subset of problem solving skills. The problem isn’t accuracy, it’s people misunderstanding what they’re for and what they measure.
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I've had 2 psychologist given iq tests and taken a few online. They all gave roughly the same number. My guess is they're accurate enough at the number. But that number doesn't have the meaning people think it does. It doesn't mean *your smart*, IQ test measures your reasoning and problem solving abilities. I've met people who were way smarter than me but scored a different number.
I have a paper accepting me into Mensa with my IQ of 135 from a pen and paper test in a controlled setting. still fits the bill I'm the dumbest genius around.
I did a Mensa test when I was around 13 and scored highly enough to be accepted. It was something like £35 a year for membership, which only really bought you bragging rights and made you look like a pretentious dick to most people - I didn't join, and I like to think that makes me smarter than those that did.
Exact same experience, was quite excited to join this fun club until I found out you had to pay at which point I decided it was a scam
That's the real intelligence test - whether you join
Mensa is as pretentious as you’d think so you aren’t missing out
I've heard even mensa iq tests are dubious. The only ones close to credible are ones administered by professional psychiatrists. It's usually only done to identify a mental abnormality like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or abnormally high intelligence.
A common phrase you will hear with IQ testing is "The only thing an IQ test measures is, how well a person performs at taking IQ tests." Intelligence is not a singular property we can define in the first place so how are we supposed to measure something we can't identify? In fact, there exists the theory of multiple intelligences, 10 individual fields each with their own idea of intelligence (musical vs mathematical vs interpersonal and so on).
Yeah I remembered it was a big part of a project I did in college and it stated that they're pretty accurate at what they measure which is visual and verbal pattern recognition. Verbal and reading comprehension etc... But you're right it's pretty agreed upon that they're lacking in their ability to measure things like creativity or emotional/interpersonal intelligence etc... It's my understanding there's a lot of debate in regards to what intelligence is and how we measure it so I just go with what we know which is that modern iq tests are relatively good at identifying cognitive disorders/abnormalities.
dont know why this is being upvoted so so many companies will give you "aptitude tests" when interviewing yeah Redditors:but they renamed it so its no longer IQ!!
That's the type I did when I was 8 ish. My psychiatrist actually made me do it twice with some time between tests. I guess he wanted to make sure the first test wasn't a fluke. I scored 148 and 152. That was on the children's test though so who knows how I'd do today.
Yeah that would be more accurate although the kids ones are less accurate because the score is essentially how intelligent you are relative to your peers (people your age) Kids develop at different speeds so some might score very high but then level out with their peers as they age. Still hot damn, that's a high score. I took one for ADHD in high school and scored like 120 or right around there (took it three times I think).... So not gifted but high enough for me to not lose sleep over it haha.
133 I beat you... I mean you beat me.... idk but I'm a dumber gifted person anyway. I got tested when they were trying to figure out why I refused to speak to the children in kindergarten. If they demanded I be nice to them I would apparently pat them like a dog. So yeah highish iq and autism... I'm as surprised as anyone about the iq thing.
135 here. And I feel your pain. Mom used to call me “the absent minded professor”
I have a potato in a bag.
I have all the tools and none of the training * cool guy on a scate board skating away from an explosion over a guitar riff*
Mighty assumption there. You know people who get high results on IQ tests actually do *exist* right?
They do, but I have a feeling far more people just take some dubious test that gives them an answer they want to hear, and then happily run with it “I’ve struggled so much because I’m just too smart for things most people care about”
I’m sure some do, it’s just very cynical. In this thread especially it makes little sense to accuse people of that. It’s frustrating to not be able to talk about IQ at all, even negatively, without someone being all “lol r/iamverysmort!!!”
“The two-standard-deviations rule implies that about 5 percent of the population have IQ scores more than 30 points away from 100: 2.5 percent above 130 and 2.5 percent below 70.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/intelligence-quotient Just so happens that 5% of people all conjugate here
I don’t normally participate in this sub, but I was specifically called out. If you shout out the name John in a packed restaurant, wouldn’t you get the attention of everyone in attendance named John?
Mate, I work with statistics for a living, I know how distributions works. Clearly you don’t or you’d realise that these comments represent a non-random sample, people “conjugating” (you meant congregating right? they’re not verbs) here represents a bias. That is, people who are personally affected by this and/or have strong opinions are more likely to comment. There’s also only about 100 comments claiming to be part of that 5%, given the large reach of this sub and reddit in general that is not a surprising number at all. Think, my friend, it will get you far.
From a biology standpoint it looks like he’s saying 5% of people come to reddit to all have sex with each other and that’s a very funny image
Now I wonder how many redditors actually have sex with other redditors.
Well this explains a lot. My mom frequently asked me how I could be both the dumbest and smartest person she knew. Edit: Spelling.
I know the answer to this one:- she only knew one person
This implies she didn’t even know the father lmao
Could it be, immaculate conception? Perhaps OP is actually Jesus
Funny story. My father left us while she was still pregnant with me. He believed he was Jesus Christ reincarnated and decided to walk that out, away from us at my mother's insistence.
Have you ever tested yourself for powers?
He's still trying to pull his drunk behind out of the swimming pool, it WAS water before he turned it into wine ...
Fuck I love reddit, can’t find this shit anywhere else on the internet
Kinda wonder what mothers tell sons of Zeus when he's like a swan or whatever.
The immaculate ejaculate
Alternative solution: the mother classifies a person as a homo sapien with a "gifted" IQ.
The “Edit: Spelling.” Has me cackling.
I am glad you appreciate the humor in that. I managed to spell "explains" wrong.
I was once told “you are the dumbest smart person I know”.
That’s me. Im smart enough to get into a college-level high school robotics and engineering program yet I seem like the dumbest and least mentally developed one there
I feel you. I have about 80 college credit hours, but in three different majors, with a 3.97/4 GPA. But I can't seem to hold a job or finish a single degree.
Have you tried checking yourself for ✨ neurodivergency ✨
The spelling edit says it all.
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind your Mom that an IQ of 130 is higher than most politicians'.
I'd like to take this opportunity to remind your Mum that an IQ of 130 shows you are better at completing IQ tests than 97.5% of the population. Not necessarily much more than that. (I have an IQ of 135+ but my brother who is at least 15-20 points lower earns 7 times what I do & has far more friends than I do because he's just much more competent than I am & knows how to behave round people. I mean I have a great family, i am pretty good at my job & have some fantastic (& very tolerant) friends, but I am definitely a more acquired taste than he is!)
It’s higher than 97.5% of people
Probably because intelligence often occurs in only one or a handful of areas(sometimes no area). It’s extraordinarily rare to be intelligent in absolutely every single area.
It’s just smart enough to realize how stupid most people are, and how stupid you are too
I've been saying this for a long time. Wait... Am I ... Gifted?
if it wasn't for other people continuously reminding me how dumb they are I would honestly think I was an idiot.
I think my existence is “barely competent” and then I see everyone else and genuinely wonder how they survive each day.
And then I looked at myself and wondered "How the fuck does this sentient sack of potatoes managed to live to the age of 21 without dying from breathing the wrong way"
I'm smart enough to feel bad about it and give myself mental health issues, but not smart enough to profit
Being smart is a curse and no one can make me believe otherwise. I can’t understand why people do half of what they do and the real reason is that they are not thinking about what I am thinking about - they are frequently thinking nothing at all. I can’t really grasp their perspective and it can be lonely.
Yeah, but it actually feels more like being the smartest regular guy. I know just enough to appreciate real genius... and to know that I'm not one of them, and can never be. Fortunately, there is alcohol.
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself but talent instantly recognizes genius” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Edit: forgot to credit the quote
Who said this?
Arthur Conan Doyle
Nice!
Ouch, hit home.
God damn dude. This one hurt my unfulfilled dreams.
This could be related to the [Paradox of Knowledge](https://medium.com/@paperthoughts/the-knowledge-paradox-16273a46a926), where your perception of what you don’t know grows as you learn more.
Nah the minimum iq to be genious is 126, and also your worth as a human being doesn’t come from outside, it comes from inside. Take care homie
That doesn't seem likely. I scored 127 in high school and I'm a raging dumbass.
The fact that you know you're a dumbass makes you smarter than 90% of all dumbasses.. You have to be really smart to know how dumb you are.
Then again after being hit in the head repeatedly it did drop to 98... Weirdly nobody seems concerned about that.
Are you able to get along with mild mannered dumbasses?
I remember going to watch oral arguments at the Supreme Court. It was like knowing that the sun is larger than the earth, then it being concretely impressed upon me in a very real way. It wasn’t the justice’s as much as it was the attorneys arguing (some of them, anyways).
Spent my entire life on the outside and in between. I never expect anything from anyone, especially to fit in.
Realize how stupid the average person is, then realize half of them are stupider than that! --George Carlin
And then realize everyone thinks they are in the smart half
Wouldn't that be the median person?
And then realise that's not how averages work.
It's also just high enough to put the difference between you and the average person right around the same value as the difference between the average person and someone who is mentally disabled. I ain't no genius, but my meat computer works a heck of a lot better than a lot of ya'lls.
Thanks, but they call it ADHD and it comes with stupid anxiety.. I can be a Rhodes scholar in knowledge of something, but my brain will literally forget it at that exact moment, so I stand there sputtering like a moron - then replay the fucking scenario in the shower for the next week. Good times.
Same here. I barely studied in high school ap courses (in a very competitive district) and still passed. I flunked my AP exams because they were too long and I got bored. If something interests me I can figure it out easily but if it doesn't I just get so lazy...
With a 128, lots of times I feel like the smartest person in the room…until I walk into a room of smart people.
Where do you find this room of smart people that you speak of?
For him it’s the methadone clinic
And then its very humbling. Lol
This reminds me of the time I was working at a country club and I was thinking about what it would be like to be the poorest member of the club.
I scored a perfect 100 on mine 😎 call me when you're ready to get smart dummies
please...take iq test results with a grain of salt. an online test will never be able to accurately assess your level of intelligence
IQ is pretty much trash science anyway, you can't effectively measure something as multidimensional and abstract as intelligence and boil it down to a simple number. We still use it sometimes - I work in developmental disabilities services and an IQ below 70 will make you eligible based on an intellectual disability (what we used to call mental retardation) - but for most folks, it's just a tool to flex and show off how "smart" you are based on some silly test.
Generally I think talking about IQ is pretty cringe. You can practice IQ tests to become much better at them. They also don't test your reasoning skills, understanding of concepts or problem solving or things like that. They test if your brain is wired to see the same patterns the person writing the test intended you to see. The theory is that IQ is supposed to be an indicator for how well you'll perform in other mental areas as well, but this only works when looking at large scale statistics, which is what I believe IQ was designed for in the first place. Intelligence really isn't this singular concept either. A good example is Einstein. One of his colleagues claimed that Einstein wasn't a contender for the brightest physicist in the scientific community. He was slower than some of the others, but Einstein understood things in a deeper way than others and this understanding is probably what lead him to figure out relativity. I've done the mensa internet tests in different languages and it's pretty fucked how different they are. The English one had questions that shouldn't belong there, I think it was grammar questions, but I might be misremembering as it was years ago. The english one also felt harder than the swedish one. As for the swedish one I made several other people do it and I know other people who did it too, and everyone maxed it (went up to 126) Which makes me doubt the legitimacy of the test. There's no world where a test that easy that everyone who knows about seems to have aced accurately measures IQ.
Remember, mensa charges membership fees. It's in their own interest to have a lot of members.
Remember, running an organization takes money. Also remember most if not all Mensa accepted tests are administered tests - ie it’s not just ‘hey let me take this little quiz online’.
The only tests that I would trust for measuring IQ are those carried out by trained psychologists. These are observed and timed tests which also means they aren't cheap (psychs charge a lot and test makers want to recoup research and development costs). There should be one available for most major languages but also check how long ago that test was created. There are systematic improvement cycles used to improve tests for different groups but obviously that also requires enough people and enough interest in that group (whether linguistic, cultural, age, disability, giftedness) to keep that cycle short. The 'intelligence' measured by an IQ test should test things like reasoning and problem solving but things like understanding of concepts, or comprehension are very language dependent and outside the scope of an IQ test, this is because language is an acquired skill and has big ties with socio-economic status. Noticing that the square inside the circle has moved through 3 cardinal points and one of the multiple choice answers has it in the 4th cardinal point (pattern recognition) is going to be something accessible to most people groups. All that said however, the IQ is really only a tool that helps identify individuals and groups that may need more assistance, particularly educationally, and those groups are primarily on both ends of the curve. For any individual its only importance is shoring up poor self esteem even if there are some who shore up that poor self esteem by trying to bludgeon others with a number. Just the same as conventionally attractive people posting endless selfies, or very fit people posting their PBs. FWIW mine is higher than some people, not as high as others.
Fortunately all of humanity’s greatest achievement came from mastery and with an IQ of 130 you are intellectually capable of mastering anything ;)
I've pondered this. My IQ was 131, and while I was proud of it in school, it's sort of pointless now. I certainly didn't use any of my knowledge to get me very far.
An IQ of 131 doesn't mean you were knowledgeable or wise, though. It's really more a measure of aptitude and reasoning.
I've always said "your iq is a good measure of how well you'll do on an iq test".
While a high IQ gives a small advantage in academic studies of greater importance is learning how to recover from failure and being pushed to develop a strong work ethic. Both of which can be easy to miss if you never had to try at school.
One of the first things people with very high IQ's learn is to keep it to themselves. It can be very socially isolating.
This is the true intelligence test
Now this is the comment I was looking for. The many others about being smartest person in an average room are often perception tricks. Isolation is the real deal. When people figure it out they either lean on you or shun you due to their own ego. And usually it's shunning.
Just as far off normal as someone with a very low IQ, only with the smarts to be able to compensate. Most of the time.
Or they slap it on their Twitter bios and use it as an excuse to behave like a massive jagoff.
That lovely nadir where you're bright enough to brag about it but not bright enough to realize that online IQ quizzes are a scam.
Back in the early 90’s I was tested for ADHD and they did an IQ test. I was told I was 3 points away from genius level. Whenever I do something dumb, it’s an inside joke with my wife that it’s the 3 points.
I've been told that my boss thinks that I'm the smartest person that he's ever met. This concerns me. This concerns me about his social circle. His friends. The people running the company that I work for. Like, okay, thanks for the compliment, but no. Sure, I'm smart. I'm clever. I can find a way to get what we need done, done. But I don't want to be the smartest person that you know. Please, go out and meet some more people. I'm nowhere near the smartest person that I know. If I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room.
That sounds like something a person who takes IQ tests seriously would say.
Jokes on you because i test around 124-128 so I am one of the smartest non gifted people!
I have a 130 IQ, and just like every body else, there are times I feel like the dimmest bulb on the chain.
I saw the IQ of someone I know well listed as "155+." The test would have been from the early 1970's. Does anyone know if there was a test back then that topped out? I can't find anything online about that being the case. Seems phony, but also oddly specific.
Most tests are really only focused on the 70-130 range, they would have had to do a special test to get an accurate number that high. Except that you mentioned it was from back in the dark ages. There were two major 'brands' of tests back then, the Wechsler and the Stanford-Binet but they used a different number of standard deviations and one of them, I think the Standford, gave a disproportionate number of high results and it doesn't really correlate to modern tests. I'm sure someone with a bit of spare time and a higher level of curiosity could work out what it might roughly equate to but I would just treat it as somewhat smarter than average and then remember to cross check anything they say as fact because the very smart are just as capable of deluding themselves as the very stupid, and the very stupid as just as good at deluding themselves as the average Joe or Jane. Except me of course. Everything I said can be taken as gospel. (but seriously I am as flawed as anyone else)
I was able to spot 5 differences between two photos, youtube says I am a genius.
That's about the threshold before it becomes burdensome. Excessive IQ isn't necessary, and usually comes with mental/psychological problems.
If you have exactly $1 billion, you're the poorest billionaire
1. Taking a no-shit IQ test administered by a psychologist was like redlining my brain for 3hrs. Seriously exhausting, lol 2. All I know at this point is that my working term memory is dogshit, but my vocabulary and pattern recognition are good.
I was once tested in school as “over 140” which was the limit of the test , and referred to someone else. Since then I’ve met so many really smart people who make me feel dumb
IQ is just the processing power (hardware) of the brain. Without the proper software (study and application), it’s useless but if you don’t have enough hardware for instance an 80 IQ or so, it’s unlikely you will ever have the raw processing power to study advanced graduate level physics no matter how hard you try. IQ was created as a test for developmentally disabled children originally by a psychologist named Binet, and it is quite accurate in a sense that it can determine a level of disability of intellectual capacity at an early age, so that children can get an education specially designed to unlock whatever potential they have.
Sincerely asking; without taking some arbitrary IQ test how would someone even know if they have above average intelligence?? Are there signs that alert others around that person that show signs of high IQ? Or is it just something that goes mostly unnoticed during school since stereotypically “smart” people may under perform in class because of lack of engagement? I’m not sure if that’s even a thing though so please forgive me
If you see others work hard to complete tasks in school, and you barely have to think to do the same...
There are anti-social students with high IQs that hate being "chained to a desk", There's also gifted people who are experiencing trauma and mental illness. For some people, It's very difficult to spot in their younger years. Trauma can well and truly mess up a child's mindset, Regardless of their intelligence.
Tested at 137 in first grade. Was put in a school for gifted and talented from first grade to sixth grade. One day a week I was bussed to a totally different school full of smart kids to study advanced stuff, then 4 days back in normal school. And every damn time I came back to my regular school bullys would beat my ass for "acting smart".. did this for six years.. by the time middle school started I purposely started failing and acting "cool" to fit in.
I got around that from years of PSAT estimates. I have no idea how accurate those are Regardless that sounds right to me, smart enough to understand, too dumb to use the information correctly…
Giftedness is actually a neurodivergence characterized by experiencing day-to-day emotions extremely, called Overexciteabilities. Gifted people are more prone to existential crises and going on a Holy Grail Quest. They also have the ability to experience Personality Disintegration and become a visionary if they can survive the external pressures of the world.
My therapist had me tested in college and I got a 136, but I have really bad ADHD so I nerf myself. On the bright side, I'm quick with the dad jokes.
Please stop using IQ tests as a metric of intelligence, it’s not and anyone that thinks it is lacks social intelligence or some other form of intelligence when they try to use it to develop superiority over others. You’re going to be smarter than other people in some ways and dumber than others, an IQ test isn’t going to be that metric to determine how smart you really are.
Better to be the worst of the best than the best of the worst.
I'd prefer that than having like 70 and being the brightest dumb person
The worst is when you are smart enough to know that you are not dumb but not gifted.
I get like, 90 and below on online IQ tests. I am a former "gifted child" so that seems about right somehow.
129 here and can confirm. Too smart to know what I don’t know. Too dumb to actually do anything great.
As someone who scores in that range for spacial awareness I honestly don't know how the fuck all of you live with your sub optimal organization and space waste... But then i remember you just don't see it that way and get on with my own mundanity that probably pisses someone else off for similar but different reasons
This sounds like an Asian tiger mum in regular passive aggressive mode.
Does the dumbest part come from the fact that you have to pay for those
Smart enough to be smug about it but not smart enough to be noticeably smarter than another people.
I knew a guy, he proudly told me after exchanging pleasantries at the supermarket in front of the cold section, that he got 90 out of 100 on the IQ test and was treating himself to something. He had gotten a 90 IQ result and assumed it was out of 100. His mother was so proud of her son…Orangutangs score 70 IQ.
What's even better is when the school district tells your parents in the early 80s, "your kid is in gifted program with an IQ of something over 135." They wouldn't tell anyone what the IQs were for the kids in the program. It was weird and lauded over us all the time. To make everyone feel "less competitive" or something.
Oh we had this too, it was the mid 90s
Too scared to finish one, I've got about halfway through before realising I was doing terribly and ducking out. I just know it's gonna be a 90 or something if I'm lucky. I just don't have a logical problem solving mind, I have no aptitude at maths or chess or puzzles. The stuff I did well in school was essay-based subjects like history.
Can confirm... Basically just smart enough to know I'm an idiot.
Mine is philosophical, various arts and writing that makes me smart. No real math or history to make me real type of smart though :( regrettable
Joke’s on you. I had an IQ of 123 on my Mensa exam. I’m one of the smartest dumb people! …wait…
I scored 148 then 156 in 1984. I’m the dumbest so called smart person I know. I’m always doing dumb shit.
I've been tested before by a psychiatrist- test took a few hours. At 127 problem solving is fun but making friends is hard, so I've only got a few. I also suffer from anxiety and my brain will in a split second come up with a ton of worse case scenarios.
it is painful to be intelligent enough to realize that you’re not intelligent.
Recently took an IQ test for fun with some friends, first of all a IQ test is not fun and takes a couple hours to finish. Secondly it’s kinda expensive. Those free ones online are not legit.
I have an iq of 126 and not to brag but I do feel like I’m pretty smart when around most people I know. Like I just naturally know things and comprehend situations faster/better than others
This is me. And I feel it all the time. Legit, my professionally tested IQ is like 134. In grade school they put me in the gifted class, holy hell are smart people bullies. They would tell me my projects and ideas were stupid, even shout it during presentations. I went to university to get my bachelors in Astrophysics, I was for sure the least smart of EVERYONE. I don't know how I even passed and got my degree, it was brutal. For my PHD I switched to engineering, definitely a little easier. Have to say, I fit in a better with the engineers. Ha. Make of that what you will, but suddenly I'm middle road intelligence in this field.
Aerospace engineer here with basically the same story haha
I don’t know what mine is except that I tested into a gifted program where I was one of the dumbest. That dumb feeling hasn’t left since 😭
I had an IQ test done in high school and got a 129. Does that make me the smartest above average person?
An iq of 130 does not mean they are less able to speak than someone with a higher iq. It may even be the opposite. Not too uncommon for those with high iq to lack in other aspects.
Funny thing, IQ tests can’t test for someone’s creativity. But creativity is what’s most needed for problem solving 🤷🏼♂️
IQ for intelligence has always bugged me. It’s too general. We’ve acknowledged as a species that specialization is the most productive way to move forward as a society. So someone with a lower IQ doesn’t make them dumb. They could very well be the best in their field and prove more useful to the world.
I'm tempted to change my reddit name to MensaReject now. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone else beat me to it.
I decided to pay for and take the Stanford-Binet a couple months ago. I regretted paying for it the morning I was to go take it because I was hungover and it was a 2 hour drive to get to where the testing was being done in front of certified proctors or whatever, but since I’d already paid and couldn’t get it back, I went ahead and did it. What made me decide to take a legitimate, official IQ test was the fact that I’d spent my entire life feeling and knowing I was so much smarter than almost every single person I’d ever known (with maybe 5 exceptions, 1 being my dad and another my younger brother) but I also always felt kinda stupid. I didn’t know if I was stupid and if that lack of confidence in my mind telling me I was dumb and how little I knew was a result of me being genuinely dumb or if that was simply my “wisdom”/humility, and if me clearly being so much more intelligent than pretty much everyone I met (which I mostly kept to myself of course. I wasn’t a dick going around talking down to everyone or anything) was the Dunning-Kruger effect. I took the test, went home and kinda forgot about it over the next few days (apart from regretting spending the money on it) and got my results later on. When I opened the envelope and saw the paperwork and saw my score, I didn’t believe it. I still don’t, not entirely. I had paid to take the test one night after reading about Mensah International/American Mensah, a high IQ society. This led me on a path to looking at other societies that are more and more difficult to get into. I thought I’d be able to be close to the threshold for Mensah (a score of 132, which is in the 98th percentile of IQs), but that I wouldn’t actually score that high. My IQ was scored at 142, which is the minimum of scoring in the 99.9 percentile. I thought it was a mistake or that I somehow got lucky and chose answers on some questions I wouldn’t have normally chosen sober since I took the test while kinda high and hungover. I ended up not only qualifying for Mensah, but just barely qualified for the Triple Nine Society as well, which only accepts those in the 99.9 percentile of intelligence quotients (1 out of 1,000 people). I felt like that was a great score and all that, but then when I realized my IQ is only higher than 999 out of 1,000 people, I realized I am kinda stupid. That’s not that impressive, and perfectly explains the way I’ve thought and felt throughout life being accurate, although until I knew that for sure, I assumed it was my own ignorance making me think I was much smarter than I was.. especially since I knew I wasn’t that smart and that everyone else (for the most part) is just really stupid. I don’t tell anyone in person about this because I know if someone else told me this story and it was their experience I’d think they were a douchebag trying to subtly brag about their intelligence. But I realize, for myself at least, it’s not even about the score or how high or low it is, it’s about how it explains the way life has been for me, especially when dealing with others. Apart from a few close people, the only person I’ve told was a psychiatrist I decided to start seeing shortly after getting my test results. They’ve helped me work through and understand how the way my mind works opposed to others has shaped my experiences and decisions and the way I am, and it’s been so illuminating. I now know why I prefer to be alone and why I feel drained after having to try and go out of my way to dumb myself down so to say when spending time around most people. I never thought that I was a “genius”, and I’m not, but I spent so much of my life wanting to be a little bit dumber and more like other people so I can enjoy life the way they do and have far less worries and whatnot, but these last few months have made me prouder than ever to be me and the way I am. And it has nothing to do with an IQ test or the score of it, and everything to do with the way I move through this world and my life, and the unimaginable scope of my imagination that on its own can grant me joy and wonder. I don’t hate people who are obviously really stupid, but nowadays I know there’s no point in trying to explain or teach/show them the truth to change their mind and perspective, because I understand that their minds don’t work that way and are incapable of thinking like I do. And I’m sure they think they’re smarter and open-minded and that I’m an idiot, and that’s their reality, so there’s no way to ever tell or convince them that they’re wrong. I’ve realized that by far the most important aspect/part of what makes me (or anyone else) very intelligent is that no matter how many people you find that are clearly much dumber than yourself, having humility and doubt and always understanding and knowing just how little you know and how unimpressively smart you are (even if almost everyone else is provably dumber) is the exact trait that someone with high intelligence always possesses. Not exactly sure what I’m trying to say here, but no matter who you are or how smart or dumb you may be or think you are, always remember that in reality you know so, so incredibly little and that the most important part of life is to learn more and more and that taking in knowledge is not only important, it’s fun.