I Took an IQ Test to Find Out What it Actually Measures

IQ is supposed to measure intelligence, but does it? Head to brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial, and the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms - a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - ve42.co/SnatomsV
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A huge thank you to Emeritus Professor Cecil R. Reynolds and Dr. Stuart J. Ritchie for their expertise and time.
Also a massive thank you to Prof. Steven Piantadosi and Prof. Alan S. Kaufman for helping us understand this complicated topic. As well as to Jay Zagrosky from Boston University's Questrom School of Business for providing data from his study.
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References:
Kaufman, A. S. (2009). IQ testing 101. Springer Publishing Company.
Reynolds, C. R., & Livingston, R. A. (2021). Mastering modern psychological testing. Springer International Publishing.
Ritchie, S. (2015). Intelligence: All that matters. John Murray.
Spearman, C. (1961). " General Intelligence" Objectively Determined and Measured. - ve42.co/Spearman1904
Binet, A., & Simon, T. (1907). Le développement de l'intelligence chez les enfants. L'Année psychologique, 14(1), 1-94.. - ve42.co/Binet1907
Intelligence Quotient, Wikipedia - ve42.co/IQWiki
Radiolab Presents: G. - ve42.co/RadioLabG
McDaniel, M. A. (2005). Big-brained people are smarter: A meta-analysis of the relationship between in vivo brain volume and intelligence. Intelligence, 33(4), 337-346. - ve42.co/McDaniel2005
Deary, I. J., Strand, S., Smith, P., & Fernandes, C. (2007). Intelligence and educational achievement. Intelligence, 35(1), 13-21. - ve42.co/Deary2007
Lozano-Blasco, R., Quílez-Robres, A., Usán, P., Salavera, C., & Casanovas-López, R. (2022). Types of Intelligence and Academic Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Intelligence, 10(4), 123. - ve42.co/Blasco2022
Kuncel, N. R., & Hezlett, S. A. (2010). Fact and fiction in cognitive ability testing for admissions and hiring decisions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(6), 339-345. - ve42.co/Kuncel2010
Laurence, J. H., & Ramsberger, P. F. (1991). Low-aptitude men in the military: Who profits, who pays?. Praeger Publishers. - ve42.co/Laurence1991
Gregory, H. (2015). McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War; Plus the Induction of Unfit Men, Criminals, and Misfits. Infinity Publishing.
Gottfredson, L. S., & Deary, I. J. (2004). Intelligence predicts health and longevity, but why?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(1), 1-4. - ve42.co/Gottfredson2004
Sanchez-Izquierdo, M., Fernandez-Ballesteros, R., Valeriano-Lorenzo, E. L., & Botella, J. (2023). Intelligence and life expectancy in late adulthood: A meta-analysis. Intelligence, 98, 101738. - ve42.co/Izquierdo2023
Zagorsky, J. L. (2007). Do you have to be smart to be rich? The impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress. Intelligence, 35(5), 489-501. - ve42.co/Zagorsky2007
Strenze, T. (2007). Intelligence and socioeconomic success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research. Intelligence, 35(5), 401-426. - ve42.co/Strenze2007
Deary, I. J., Pattie, A., & Starr, J. M. (2013). The stability of intelligence from age 11 to age 90 years: the Lothian birth cohort of 1921. Psychological science, 24(12), 2361-2368. - ve42.co/Deary2013
Flynn, J. R. (1987). Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: What IQ tests really measure. Psychological bulletin, 101(2), 171. - ve42.co/Flynn1987
Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents' | James Flynn, TED via KZbin - • Why our IQ levels are ...
Duckworth, A. L., Quinn, P. D., Lynam, D. R., Loeber, R., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (2011). Role of test motivation in intelligence testing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(19), 7716-7720. - ve42.co/Duckworth2011
Kulik, J. A., Bangert-Drowns, R. L., & Kulik, C. L. C. (1984). Effectiveness of coaching for aptitude tests. Psychological Bulletin, 95(2), 179. - ve42.co/Kulik1984
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Written by Derek Muller, Casper Mebius, & Petr Lebedev
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Filmed by Derek Muller, Han Evans, & Raquel Nuno
Animation by Fabio Albertelli & Ivy Tello
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Pond5
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Casper Mebius, & Han Evans

[@mahirnagersheth]

I just took an IQ test and I am SO happy... Thank God it came back negative!

[@texivani]

Imagine being intelligent 🤓🧠

[@hadensnodgrass3472]

This made my day. 🤣 top tier 👌

[@truejim]

I tried turning up the brightness on my microphone, but I still sound dim.

[@myvalekcz6656]

​@@truejimah yes making a microphone brighter

[@BEEP640]

Mine came back positive 2 🤓

[@GussDeBlod]

I took an IQ test once that had a time limit and there was a clock in the room. I don't like time pressure so I panicked and ended up with a not too bad but still very depressing score. They made me take another test and told me it wasn't timed, I did way better, was proud of myself. They actually lied to me, it was timed, but by not telling me I just got a way better score and still finished in time. So many factors as to why someone would get a bad or good result in a test.

[@idontwantahandlethough]

ohhhh, that's really interesting!

[@TotalDrganMania]

When my school did an iq test in second grade, I fucked around during it because I didn't want to take the test. Weirdly I still did above average, though I don't know the actual score, that's just what my mom tells me. Shes said she was surprised it wasn't higher, but was still happy. Now I have completely changed my view as an adult on test taking and how seriously I take assessments. I haven't taken an IQ test since, nor do I really care to, but I would be curious if I would score higher

[@HelmutQ]

Being proud of yourself does not make you more successful at most a little bit happier for a short while before reality kicks in. I know that these are very heretic thoughts these days, but I don't care. Truth beats social acceptance. Not being very amiable does not prevent you from being successful. History is full with successful bastards. Newton who invested in slaves, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and almost all American presidents present and past.

[@top6ear]

The time limit is ridiculous.

[@NavAK_86]

The time limitations indicates whether someone can think faster on their feet to solve problems vs those who need more time. So even if scored higher, in a real world scenario, time cannot be controlled in this fashion.

[@joliver81]

I remember at age 3 I used to completely disassemble my older sisters full size bike, after seeing my dad use his tools, mom caught me and said “ you put that back together right this second”, made me feel as though it was wrong as opposed to encouraging my curiosity. Think we all have great potential if nurtured properly.

[@aronlinde1723]

The best way i heard IQ described is its like a combination of the acceleration of a car and its top speed. You can go a very distance from your starting point with a fast car that either accelerates quickly or has a high top speed but what really matters is the direction the car is going It doesnt matter how fast you are going if you are pointing the wrong direction.

[@chandrasai1990]

you see crystallised intelligence come into place here, fluid iq gradually decreases after the 30 age mark unlike the other. It stays put and has a slow increase too!! so in my experience of people around me fluid iq does help in contribution for a persons success but it isnt all. Crystallised iq matters too in a persons achievements. Humans are adaptable to environments and it is beautiful if you think about it.

[@vilhelmkron7455]

​@@chandrasai1990true, the flouride in water and toothpaste sure doesnt help in this matter.

[@user-wn1kq8jx5q]

@@vilhelmkron7455🤦😂

[@UrbanDefenseSystems]

@@user-wn1kq8jx5q One of the smartest and most successful people in the world have outlawed fluoride from their water. Do with that information what you will.

[@icutoffmyleftwing7190]

Mic drop

[@tipsbunker4431]

When I was 8 years old my primary school teacher was convinced that I was gifted because I was always the first to finish a test and because I often seemed to get bored in class. One day I was taken out of class to take an IQ test for this reason. I have no memories of the test itself and no one ever told ma what the conclusion was. Around the age of 15 it also became clear that I had ADHD, despite this I was still holding up in school and I started taking medication. I am now 19 years old and a few months ago my parents told me that I had scored below average on this IQ test in primary school. The primary school psychologist (that had tested me) had told my parents that I would certainly not be able to go to university. My interest in science grew as I got older and when I asked my math teacher last year if I would be capable of studying engineering he said I definitely was. I have now completed my first year at the university. I am convinced that such IQ tests do not tell the full story at all. I had concentration problems and when I was 8 in primary school I had no idea what kind of test I was even taking. Don't let some number distract you from your goals!

[@conradrosgaard3481]

Well, IQ tests are quite awful at judging the IQ for people with ADHD for numerous reasons. First of all, the motivation isnt there, at least not as much and especially not if you didnt know that you were even taking an IQ test. Secondly, an IQ test only works because of the time limit. Someone who has a hard time concentrating during that time ends up not using all of it and thus getting a worse result. Its like asking a someone to take a reading test who as dyslexia. On average, people with ADHD have a lower IQ score because of these two things. What Im trying to say is that no, it didnt work on you, but it honestly isnt meant *to* work on *you* . IQ is a never will be precise - it's always been a bit weird and have about a 20 point accuracy which means you can get a score that says you're retarded even though you're just slightly below average, but it's even less precise on people with ADHD. Anyway, I bet that if you took the test now, knowing that you were taking an IQ test and while being on medication would give you a *way* higher score...

[@wesurvivedcastledunboy9571]

You sound like me in elementary school. Yet you see you did score high and you are highly intelligent it’s just our ADHD hinders our attention.

[@1nicube]

i dont want to enter into a debate. Im just gonna stick from whats in the video. in your case, yes maybe your G factor was low. But, your S factor was so big that you were able to do whatever you want. Thats way there is all of this explanation in the video. We know the G factor isnt the only factor.

[@olafzijnbuis]

Just have your IQ tested once more. Take a serious test. You may well score above average now.

[@susannewillert2685]

Learning disabilities absolutely effect your score. Unmedicated ADHD could definitely have had a negative effect. And you were probably not very motivated either. A single IQ test by itself is not enough, a more thorough neuropsych test might have found the ADHD, come with additional observations beyond just a number etc. There are plenty if gifted kids with learning disabilities and it makes it way more complicated to interpret. Even with an average IQ, disabilities will affect score.

[@seijirou302]

I was born in '81. I still remember in my kindergarten class there was a poster on the wall that read "It's not your IQ, it's your I WILL". That has stuck with me as demonstrably true my entire life.

[@wineh9227]

Stuborn people are more successful regardless of IQ.

[@fiber04]

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently, says Dostoevsky

[@seijirou302]

@@katttatt5898 I could, but only because my mother was an English teacher, and not a very nice one 🤭

[@nobitatabino5959]

​@@seijirou302someone needs spanking

[@unclezebulan9404]

What a truly stupid poster ... and what a truly stupid person it takes to believe that

[@hermesrodrigues5980]

Your point on child nutrition/education is so important. Ive seen so many altright people on the internet make racist comments based on IQ difference for populations when in fact it just shows that those populations are not having their basic needs met properly.

[@sparkn]

I doubt that observation, however true it may be for you, is limited to altright or even in the assumption that altright have their basic needs met properly as a difference to "those populations" that you mentioned. You give them too much credit and reveal a possible focusing bias on your part.

[@yes12337]

There are books about this problem and it's way more complicated and there is also some research that is quite disturbing, but it's still all very inaccurate, because it doesn't test the intelligence, but the absurdly inaccurate belief of what is to be intelligent. If people looked more closely at nature, they would probably notice there are way more skills involved and perhaps we're not even the most intelligent species on this planet

[@ivoryas1696]

@@yes12337 Perhaps... But who'd be the alternative?

[@CC-hx5fz]

Yes. Also, if you're going through times of a lot of stress, that messes with your capacity to think about the type of problems used to measure IQ. It amazes me that Aboriginal Australians retain knowledge of massive areas of land in their heads but that's not considered "intelligence". Or the skills people developed in textiles, and medicines. Also, much of the intelligence that humans needed to survive and create complex civilizations is more like shared knowledge of a community. Modern IQ tests are focused on the the notion that the odd individual genius makes things happen. And why are IQ tests timed? Intelligence is more complex than what people can do in a hour that can't do in 2 hours, or 2 days, or even years.

[@iamnotallthatiam114]

They’re literally running on empty imagine them at their full potential

[@marklonergan3898]

8:00 - this was always my biggest issue with IQ tests. A lot of the sections will test logical reasoning. These can be spacial transformations, numerical sequences, etc., and they all involve logical deduction which i would classify as intelligence; whereas the vocabulary section i would classify more as knowledge than intelligence. I do accept that even the vocabulary section does have an element of deduction, but it feels like there is way too much of a pre-requisite of knowledge. In other sections (like sequences for example), prior training in these sections is an advantage, but even without prior training, you could still work through it logically; however, with vocabulary, if you have never heard of the words, you don't have many options other than to guess, which is why i hate this section being used as part of a test of one's intelligence.

[@Kloppin4H0rses]

Logical deduction, transformations, and sequences are also knowledge. Or skills. Until I took a math class my skill in those were average. Now I can knock out most of it in my head. You get better at seeing patterns the more you engage that skill.

[@marklonergan3898]

@@Kloppin4H0rses as i was mentioning, i do accept that there is a level of knowledge to them, but my point was that unlike the language section, even if you haven't seen anything like the other sections before, you could deduce the answer logically. Obviously practice will make you better at any task, but even without prior exposure, the other sections are still possible.

[@fenrirgg]

An intelligent person will have the curiosity to learn through their life and know many words, but that correlates with age. When I was a kid there weren't vocabulary questions in those tests 🤔

[@abcde_fz]

Part of the reason there are several types of tests is to allow for that fact that the person TAKING the test doesn't get to tell the test what we think "intelligence" is. The instant I start picking apart what I think is intelligence vs knowledge, I am only about 90 years behind the folks who design the things. For instance, is the Rain Man's ability to recall in perfect detail the contents of every phone book he's ever paged through "intelligence", "knowledge", or 'just a really good memory'? The answer isn't so simple. Probably the best you can say is, the things are probably not NAMED very well. After all, they aren't measuring your intelligence, they're comparing the results of a mathematical operation performed on the sum total of elements in the tests to a known range of generally accepted statistical norms comprised of similar results gathered from a sub-set of all humans, namely, the other humans who've also taken the same test!!! The test's final integer results aren't the accurate measurements of raw "intelligence values" somehow taken from all your neurons added together, like your pulse or respiration rates, they're a comparison of your overall assessed values with everyone else's. Sorry if you already knew that and I read it wrong, you just got me kind of complaining along with you that there seems to be something 'off' about the things and what they do, and I'm full of coffee so I blathered along, but decided to keep it because I wrote it, so you must have hit a nerve that had me maybe thinking "Yeah, I agree and am full of caffeine..."

[@OctavianAsix]

bruv If you're taking an iQ test and don't know THE WORDS?!? on it That's a problem And as the previous⏫commenter stated, it's really a measure of how you perform vs. how other people performed Everyone else knew the words but not you?!? You can't use root words, context clues ANYTHING!!? that's pretty low iQ, respectfully

[@cupostuff9929]

It's actually really interesting that the IQ test has a baseline relative to the average of all scores, which means it measures your intelligence relative to others & not some fixed constant.

[@peterparker9286]

Is it Hip to be Square??? Elementary WattSon. Them Quantum fellers going down...

[@nagoshi01]

​@@peterparker9286this is the high caliber of thoughtful discussion I knew I could only find on a video about IQ

[@tear728]

That's called a probability distribution, in the case of IQ a normal distribution. Parameters for the function are the mean and variance of the sample, and the output is the distribution, which is determined by the mean and variance which are not constants by definition of sampling. 100 is a completely arbitrary number used as the mean of the distribution. In other words, the data is normalized so that the distribution centers around 100. That makes it easier for interpretation I guess, otherwise it would be centered around 0

[@capybareno23]

That's how it's defined. It's a quotient

[@yeetdeets]

@@tear728 The point is that it's not a metric of intelligence. 50cm is objectively half of a meter, but you can't say X IQ is half as intelligent as Y IQ. It's a ranked quotient of measurable performance, not a metric.

[@realDonaldMcElvy]

I had an IQ of 123 when I was a teenager. I call it the Henry Ford Intelligence Test, because it only measures you like a factory worker.

[@jacobramirez4894]

🐸

[@jacobramirez4894]

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[@jacobramirez4894]

🐸🐸🐸

[@MerVolteR]

🐸🐸🐸🐸

[@realDonaldMcElvy]

🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

[@deejannemeiurffnicht1791]

Very good. Had the sort of fairly balanced in depth look you'd get from BBC as opposed to those minimal info/high-repetition excuses we often see filling in segments between ads. And looks like the guy takes the bother to select advertizers who may actually have something to offer at whatever level. Nice that.

[@nrjx7125]

Thanks for the info Derek!

[@zorphorias1523]

Given how most schools are run, I feel like using IQ tests to indicate school success is a lot like saying "If you're good at taking tests, we can determine that you are good at taking tests."

[@Chris-hz8lj]

In high school I'd say about half of the kids in my AP classes were just good at taking tests but then the other half over performed in pretty much everything they did. Point being there were quite a few kids who weren't just good at tests but seemed to be good at everything.

[@ShadyzReal]

@@Chris-hz8lj I mean idiots can have good grades. but IQ definitly hepls with understanding memorizing and efficiency.

[@willmcclard206]

and i thought u couldn’t expand upon your IQ. ur just pretty much born with it

[@ohhi5237]

dumb ppl are always dumb and complain about dumb things bc theyre dumb duh

[@ohhi5237]

@@Chris-hz8lj we know what group youre in

[@smogy001]

Cecil: you're smarter than 98.8% of the population Derek: wow😒 Cecil: hopefully you're not disappointed Derek: *visibility disappointed*😕

[@ShatabdaRoy115]

[@bugjams]

​@@jayk3551 Also. Remember that, since there is an average intelligence for Americans, that means half of them are below that average...

[@Chewy427]

ngl i was kinda sad for him when i heard 118 fluid int

[@Rosskoflex]

Not even in the top 1%, weak.

[@cactusmanfr6900]

@@jayk3551 because IQ test are renormalised, the only thing you can deduce from that information is the number of americans in total...

[@pmac5934]

Great video . Succinct but comprehensive enough to get your head around the main issues without disappearing up an i-hole , great presentation, too

[@FlemmingErnst]

This video contains sooo much more, interesting stats and scary history events. Thanks Veritasium.

[@BryanBagehi]

My father was a psychologist. Growing up, he regularly administered various IQ tests on me. I became quite competent at standardized testing. To this day, I discount the value of these tests as I know I effectively cheated on them throughout the rest of my life. I learned test taking strategies and practiced the common types of questions so I am able to identify patterns of questions/answers favored in each test, which positively impacted my results compared to many others who did not have this experience.

[@aleskuro]

hmm.. sounds like every school system

[@crustybomb115]

learning how to cheat the system... yeah nothing new here... just school system shenanigans in a nutshell...

[@nathanluk2231]

Do you remember how your IQ results from these tests increase over the years?

[@blue-xb1cq]

iq tests can be learned but you still need to know the subjects to do well for SAT/ACT. For example, no more than 5 people get a perfect score for the International Math Olympiads Annually.

[@BryanBagehi]

@@blue-xb1cq that's true. However there are a multitude of benefits to constantly practicing long mental acuity tests, such as not having test anxiety, learning to pace yourself, and knowing how to prepare.

[@JagEterCoola]

Here's a (depressing) little fact about me. Some decade ago, when I was 12-13, I volunteered to take an IQ test at my school, and was generally considered a 'gifted kid' with outstanding grades in a lot of subjects, as well as an appetite for knowledge that shocked my teachers at the time - Books would be devoured in a matter of hours, I never studied and aced everything anyways because, as it turns out, what I did on my free time (devouring random wikipedia articles, essentially) was effectively studying. Then, my parents divorced, my grandparents and dogs died, and I went through a maaaajor depressive episode lasting, well, it's still going over a decade later, but the worst of it was age 14-19, where I was actively suicidal. For 'fun', I took a new IQ test when I was turning 20. My IQ when I was ~13? 144. My IQ after a major depressive episode a few years later? 106. My IQ today, another few years after that? 112. I don't want to blame depression or anything like that, but I do think it played a very large factor in killing my motivation for study - and notably, it killed a lot of my memory. I couldn't tell you a thing I did age 14-19 with any level of real accuracy other than scream at my divorced mother twice and moving house five times.

[@TigeroL42]

You are not alone with this. The effects of depression on memory is no joke. I feel like my fluid intelligence and memory are at 0. I do the things i know and like extraordinarily well but everything new seems scary and an insurmountable challenge. For me the saving grace is hiking, backpack travel and fishing etc. There's no preset constructs, no budgets to make and face, no other people who are locked in the same ditch. Just the vast nature and world with it's everchanging mysteries and challenges thrown at you that you have been created to overcome. The modern society is killing us slowly and the world with us. We're living the last chapter of Plato's Republic.

[@GKTorn.]

I know a few Mensa members that I believe are absolutely some of the dumbest people I've ever met. Sorry about your troubles though! ❤️

[@jamie6692]

This seems, if nothing else, like a good refutation of the notion that individual intelligence is inherent and static.

[@Vazio3]

Depression is known for reducing your IQ results, especially during episodes...

[@johnowens5342]

Depression can cause permanent damage to the prefrontal cortex. I am certainly not making recommendations, but a Harvard study found that neurogenesis caused by cubensis mushrooms can repair the damage.

[@devonanselme7916]

Honestly I've been thinking about all this stuff for a while now. Thanks for enlightening me.

[@pseudotonal]

Up through High School I always did poorly in school, gradewise. I graduated in the bottom 1/3 of my class. I probably had ADD. I certainly got in trouble a lot for goofing around. But as a teen I began to compose music and discovered that I was quite precocious. In college I majored in music and got mostly A in every music class except for instrument performance, where I usually got a C, but lower grades in all non-music subjects. I even majored in Medical Technology for 2 years. But, when I went to graduate school for music composition I got all As and 1 B. Then I took a third degree, this time in computer science and got mostly As, with 2 Bs. But I was the top student in most of my classes and two of the teachers, who were adjunct faculty, offered me jobs. One job was to manage either the network or the hard drives for the Census Bureau and the other was to write computer programs for scientists. I didn't like the pay since it was less than what I made teaching piano, so I didn't take either job. Finally I landed a computer programming job and eventually became the data and programming expert in a major government law-enforcement data base. I have since created over 200 music compositions and currently have more than 200 videos of them on KZbin. So, there is such a thing as a late-bloomer.

[@tieroberson]

Back in high school, I took several iq tests and would always score somewhere around the 132 range, so naturally I was walking around like the big brain on campus. Then I grew up and realized I'm dumb as hell, but just a really good test-taker.

[@lolliii5477]

yeah... you can say 130 is the average... but... *test papers are all the same, you see one you see them all.*

[@tieroberson]

@@lolliii5477 130 was NOT average at the school I went to 😂😂😂

[@johnyoung3511]

Thinking you're not as smart as you actually are is a good indicator of high intelligence (sorry!) However, there is a big difference between 'bright' Hi-IQ and 'Clever' Street smarts 🙂

[@patreekotime4578]

​@@johnyoung3511Which perfectly illustrates how bs the test is. Arguably so-called "street smarts" represent a more natural gauge of human intelligence than parsing sentence structure.

[@AndySaenz924]

Oh, nonsense. I don’t think you’re dumb as hell. I think everyone is intelligent, it’s what you do with it that really matters.

[@mansouri9430]

Curious to see how an IQ test designer would do on an IQ test

[@brokenrecord3523]

That is an absolutely valid question and one of the biggest arguments against IQ tests. They are biased toward the demographic that they are testing. You don't think the SAT and ACT are for white, middle class kids? That IQ relates to success is not about intelligence, it's about social bias.

[@pingpong_]

He knows the tricks and logic of his tasks, so he would earn extra points

[@x.elliek.x]

this is interesting. wouldn't this mean that the creator of the test should really have a higher IQ than anyone taking it?

[@benbraceletspurple9108]

​@x.elliek.x yes and no. IQ tests are designed by highly intelligent people, and the answers have to be made with information, and that information must be known, by the test designer. This is why truly, many people have immeasurable intelligence, meaning, they could create their own problems other people can not solve.

[@isomz638]

They wouldn't, because it would be extremely biased. People have done this and are able to score EXTREMELY high.

[@vBrazzyy]

I was involved in a case study a couple of years ago and I was given an IQ test during that time. My score was 142. I've never fully understood what that meant. Your video shined alot of light on the subject. Thank you as always for your incredibly detailed and informative videos!!

[@paxgamer3003]

These infographic animations are on point

[@ceooflonelinessinc.267]

I (33) have a learning disability. My IQ is approx 80. I got tested twice in school. It is mainly due to the fact that my mother drunk alcohol during her pregnancy (FASD spectrum/Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) Everything is harder in my life. No matter how hard I try, I always fail. I needed to visit special ed class till 18, I never had many friends, I never had the ability to visit college or achive high education, I only work at sign holder jobs...or fast food...I also never had a girlfriend. A low intelligenc is a severe punishment for your whole life, which affects every aspect of your life negatively.

[@MasParaQue]

My advice: Do things that you love to do. Even though your brain is at a disadvantage, that does not make you less.

[@ceooflonelinessinc.267]

@MasParaQue Thats the problem...I would like to have a family, travel the world, study science, have a girlfriend...but I cant due to my disability...I just want to be normal and

[@BuGGyBoBerl]

there are a few things. your personal life depends on many factors and your single example cant be used to derive general statements. yes, low intelligence limits your possibilities. one cant deny that. regarding the girlfriend issue: im not saying it has no influence, but there are many other more decisive factors for it. i know a lot of people who have the same struggle and have pretty high IQ. (ofc thats not any helpful advice, just pointing it out)

[@AtheistAI]

I (52) have a learning disability and an IQ of 143. I had not finished high school and have no post secondary education. I taught myself how to use computers and now work in cybersecurity. One key point is I left my home country to get away from my non existent educational scores. I am not trying to make you feel bad. Since we have similar starts in life I would be interested in mentoring you.

[@TedThomasTT]

​@@ceooflonelinessinc.267there's nothing stopping you from doing this.

[@xxwookey]

The practice part really matters. When I did this as a kid I got 9 or 10 points higher after practicing some tests to get used to the question types. Which in itself illustrates that intelligence testing is hard.

[@brianmcdaniels8249]

Uh., All this proves is that the testing is based on knowledge and not intelligence (aka the capability to learn anything)

[@JonDotExe]

​ @brianmcdaniels8249 I was told *_absolutely not_* to try and practice, as it can skew results. I took one as an adult on only 4 hours of sleep and still scored proximally within the same standard deviation of my childhood score.

[@blah204]

@@brianmcdaniels8249this is cope. A meta analysis would easily smooth that out. Practicing for IQ test doesn’t really work

[@patrykchlipaa257]

@@brianmcdaniels8249 This all proves that most things in life are learnable if spend enough time on those problems. And it's impossible to really make methods to measure everyone fairly. Not only my solution for the early life science is to divide subjects and tests for them. However with change of life XVIII century system that we have in school isn't the greatest measure. I'm from Poland and our scholar system, as everywhere, is evolving but veeeeeery slowly. It needs to be revamped, because our society is starting to collapse in my opinion. We couldn't handle it pretty much very soon. So I guess IQ tests shows the factor that a person can be good at, but it's important to be as well-rounded as possible and care about many things at the same time. You never know in what type of scam you will fall. If people keep being well-round and train their imperfections it will help our society not to collapse.

[@shrub9677]

@@brianmcdaniels8249 intelligence is taking in and applying information, a skill that you can practice

[@MrsWheezer]

You summarized a good chunk of what I learned during my masters degree program for curriculum and instruction.

[@Bearwithme560]

Now that we understand so much more about neurodiversity, l wonder what its impact is on IQ test results, as neurodiversity is entirely distinct from intelligence. There is as big an IQ bell curve on the autism spectrum, for example, as there is in the general population. Many neurodiverse people with high intelligence are treated as though they are stupid or lazy, because they struggle with things which seem straightforward or simple to neurotypicals. My ADHD also makes time tests extremely stressful, especially the patterns and math-related questions in which I end up feeling as frustrated as when untangling Christmas lights or wire hangers.

[@PeachMeww]

For everyone searching for a comment that isn't someone gloating about their high IQ and wants to feel normal, I was tested by a psychiatrist for ADHD and took an IQ test as part of it at age 16. I am completely average. IQ of 101. I remember feeling pressured by the time limits, but that's about it.

[@PeachMeww]

Oh and also, turns out I have ADHD. It should be obvious by how I forgot to mention it in the original comment, lmao.

[@astro_penguin_]

You probably would have scored slightly higher had you not had time pressure. Neurodivergence often causes underperformance in standard IQ tests.

[@nemiw4429]

​@@astro_penguin_now you defeated the porpuse of his comment.

[@leila_de_hautjardin]

Thanks. It seems that everybody is gifted, which makes no sense. Most people are average.

[@astro_penguin_]

@@nemiw4429 I'm just saying, it's a well-documented phenomenon. I think they do make IQ tests specifically for neurodiverse people though.

[@NighttimeNubbs]

As a young adult I was told was an IQ test only measures your ability to take an IQ test. The fact that there are methods to raise your score also show it isn't a raw stat like in an RPG game but I can see it being able to show the general capability of someone.

[@descai10]

It's only accurate if you don't train for it, and there are many things that can still skew it even then. IQ is only a reliable measure for populations, not individuals. (that's not to say it says nothing, just that it can be off by 10-20 points which is a lot). There are also several types of intelligence it doesn't properly measure, such as creative thinking and long-term problem solving. As for income, bravery and tenacity is very important, and it doesn't measure that either.

[@buzz1ebee]

Yeah he really should have done a test, then done practice and do a similar but different test to show this effect.

[@srishti2k22-iw5dh]

What you actually sold here is doubt and ego

[@krautandsalo]

​ Not a mathematician. I'm not even particularly good at maths. But the second question was also easy :/

[@XxRiseagainstfanxX]

You were told the truth.

[@tomsanderson4983]

I think the one factor that is overlooked or ignored is trauma or perhaps environment. Consider personal, mental, and physical development each would be different given a particular circumstance. Trauma, depending on when one experienced it and the severity, could cause changes that alter one's ability to process and understand. The overall impact of one's environment would most likely be a governing factor in their mental, emotional, and physical development. People seem to possess abilities and strengthens either positively or negative because of these influences. How do these factors facilitate or hinder the outcome of these tests?

[@thestatusjoe9949]

I took the WAIS-IV test (which I believe is the most common IQ test) a few years ago as part of a test to see if I had adhd. Of the four subtests, I was in the 99th percentile (verbal comprehension), 94th percentile (perceptual reasoning), 50th percentile (working memory), and 1st percentile (processing speed). So my IQ was fairly average (109.5 just from averaging the four tests) the difference between the various metrics was enormous

[@Anonymous0996]

I did something similar. I took an IQ test to see if I had any other learning disabilities. I was already diagnosed with ADHD at that point and was on medication. I scored a 109 and told that I had elevated ADHD and memory recall issues. But I also later learned that I wasn’t supposed to take any of my ADHD medication for a week prior to testing 🫠🫠 so there’s a chance my IQ should be lower. lol

[@Marychelle]

One of the worst things that happened to me in my childhood was scoring well on an IQ test as a small child. Severe ADHD and no executive function led to a lot of shame because people had something to point to to “prove” I was just being lazy. Even after I was diagnosed with ADD at the age of ten. Edit: I turned 10 in 1981 (just for perspective). Neurodivergence in the 70s and 80s was just called being contrary.

[@cogspace]

I had a similar experience. I tested above the "gifted" level in elementary school and was put into GATE classes. This was a part-time thing. GATE was amazing. I got to use computers and do darkroom photography and all kinds of cool stuff. But this only made me more bored of "regular" school then I already was. My grades suffered, and they kicked me out of GATE as a result, which obviously only made things even worse. I was also eventually diagnosed with ADD and put on Ritalin. That didn't help either. I developed coping strategies and they either became second nature to me or I just grew out of it. Not sure. My grades never really recovered. If I hadn't gotten way more second chances than most do, I shudder to think what would have happened to me.

[@RenegadeElite101]

Exact same. Diagnosed with ADHD in 3rd grade, never medicated. Tested for gifted (my schools version of BETA) and got in easily. Being able to cut normal class likely saved my hide for the next few years. It all came to a head in 6th grade which led to me leaving public school and going to a private school with a much harder curriculum which held my interest. Went back to same public school for HS and breezed through it, now have a 4 year degree with a decent job. If I hadn’t gone to that Private school there’s a solid chance I’d have flunked the 6th grade. Was definitely a rough time in life.

[@glittercatstudios]

I was just simply bullied for always busting the bell curve, so in order to have friends, I learned to hide my smurts until well into adulthood. Now I embrace it and don't give a flying fark if anyone cares. It's a genuine part of who I am, so you should embrace your story too. ❤

[@andrewfarrar741]

I am suing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for illegal discrimination because _they thought_ I have ADHD, bipolar, depression or some other mental disability. I don't believe that nonsense because I feel one with everyone. Google me, I am winning 🏆 and I really am _that guy._

[@user-bn4tv1ef5c]

Kids aren't supposed to sit still.

[@theondono]

I’m actually pretty grateful for IQ tests. I struggled as a kid in school, mostly because I found everything terribly boring, I was simply unable to focus on anything and I just didn’t care enough to even try to pass. My teachers wanted me to repeat a year in primary school, the school psychologist *strongly* recommended that I dropped from school as soon as possible and learned a trade. That made no sense to my parents, but being from poor families in Spain, my parents had very little in terms of education, they weren’t sure. They took me to see a therapist. My IQ tests were the convincing evidence for them that the school was wrong, so I changed schools. I went from bottom of my class to great student in 3-4 months, I went to college, got a Bsc and a Msc in electrical engineering, and now I work designing medical devices. When I look back at my schools “advice”, I’m pretty certain that I’d be so miserable that It’s not even funny to think about it.

[@mikael2751]

Yep IQ tests are mainly used to test the potential for certain cognitive challenges in children (including demonstrating their absence). This is where they're truly useful.

[@sarraounia6279]

Similar thing happened to me, I have severe ADHD and pretty much failed every class as a really young kid and my school honestly considered putting me in special ed. I got an assessment which included an IQ test and my result disqualified me from being put in special ED. Now I'm about to finish an undergrad degree in Physics and Computer Science.

[@danilooliveira6580]

neurodivergence can also affect your IQ scores negatively, what would have happened if you had no interest in doing the IQ test and just half assed it ? they would think you really were mentally challenged, when in reality you just couldn't focus on things that didn't motivate you maybe because of undiagnosed ADHD. they would never have know to change you to a school that peaked your interest or that you could succeed in a field that you felt a lot more motivated to pursue.

[@baraka629]

Not necessarily, tradesmen can earn good money, at least where i live. The brother of my best friend, who is about the same age as me got his master tradesman certificate and started a business, and he got a year long waiting list for contracts, that's how swamped tradesmen are in germany. He barely even gets to do actual work himself, there is just so much administrative/clerical work going hand in hand with fulfilling contracts here.

[@KeinZantezuken]

ADHD is a separate issues. Fun fact - did you know that there are only a handful of countries (can be counted by the fingers of your hands) that actually accept ADHD as an actual disease that requires treatment? In a shithole like Russia, for example, it does not exist essentially.

[@selador11]

"Much more important is how you interact with and help those around you". The most brilliant statement in the entire video!!!

[@pluki1357]

12:56 "I dont know..." The answer seems to be C 😎 There are always 3 lines of dots in each little drawing. The middle line of dots in each drawing is always 5 dots. The upper line (above those 5 dots) and lower line (below 5 dots) in each horizontal set of 3 boxes/drawings - are always: 1, 2 & 3 dots respectively. In the lowest set of three boxes there are already: - in the upper line: 3 & 2 dots = 1 dot in the missing one; - in the lower line: 3 & 1 dots = 2 dots in the missing one. Hence: the answer is C (1 dot over 5 dots over 2 dots).

[@rkeefer]

As a university psychologist, I've been teaching about IQ for more than 35 years. I'm afraid you missed one of the most important correlations; social class. You came close with mentioning IQ (and especially SAT) training classes; who can afford those? Even going back to Binet, the test was easier for rich kids (and urban kids).

[@thebellcurve3437]

Hypothesis: The reason those rich kids are rich is _usually_ because their parents are smart. Take blue-collar workers who won the lotto. Meaning, average or below-average IQ people who suddenly can afford to send their kids to the best schools and academic programs. See how well their kids do on IQ tests compared to kids who've had money in the family for generations. Pretty sure the latter group will do better. Earning and holding on to money for decades takes intelligence, which is passed down from generation to generation. Blue-collar lotto winners typically blow through their money and are back to being broke within one generation, due to not have high IQ like the rich kid families.

[@kuqho]

@@thebellcurve3437isn’t it easier to hoard wealth that’s been there for generations compared to when one suddenly acquires it? they’d have had more experience with it as a result of their past etc. many more factors that’d be easier to maintain owing to them already being there for years. wouldn’t this be the opposite for the other case, where people would have to invest way more to actually maintain the wealth gained?

[@kanegregory5779]

​@@thebellcurve3437 The video this comment section is for shows there is basically no correlation between IQ and the ability to hold onto money and only a very weak correlation between IQ and the ability to make money, so your hypothesis doesn't seem to be supported by the evidence

[@reiniernn9071]

@@thebellcurve3437 I'm not living in a country where the wealth of parents decide which (level) school you can follow. There is no financial blockade for a blue collar son to go to university and gets his PHD. I agree that this was different before ww2. Reason my dad could NOT go to the university as a blue collar workers child. The study and working employment from me, my brother and our child contradict youre assumption that children from blue colar workers (schooled to do theit job) are at disadvantage. I suppose only choldren from those workers who do work for which you do not need schooling and are not schooled will really be at a disadvantage.

[@thebellcurve3437]

@@kuqho First, you are showing your bias by saying "hoard wealth". Rich people with any semblance of intelligence do not "hoard wealth", they do not have thick packs of $100 bills or millions of dollars in gold and jewelry lying around their house. Perhaps rich celebrities do this for social media photo ops, but MOST rich people have their money invested; meaning they do not just have it amassed in material form for the sheer joy of marveling at their wealth. People with generational wealth use their money to make more money. Investments are not hoards; they are financial instruments. Second, yes it is easier to hold on to money if you grew up in a wealthy family, because your wealthy parents taught you how to be smart with money, they taught you financial management skills. Poor folks who win the lotto typically have no such skills which is why they blow through their winnings in a few years and are back to being average or below-average income people.

[@SmigGames]

I took an IQ test a while ago and I debated a lot about whether to take it, because, if we're being honest, I think most of our motivation to take such a test is to get a result that validates our belief that there's something special about us. A high score can give you a lot of self-esteem and confidence. But the opposite can also happen with a low score, given how many insults we throw around based on IQ and intelligence. It's not likely that knowing this number is gonna be relevant to you other than in this way, so I'm still not sure if most people should test their IQ.

[@GonzoDonzo]

You get that same measurement every day in school. Kids know if they are finishing tests earlier and scoring higher then the rest of the kids. Same is true for the kids on the other end of the spectrum that struggle.

[@khorneflakes2175]

As Gonzo said the IQ test puts a finer point on it but you most likely knew roughly what to expect before hand didn't you ?

[@mikafoxx2717]

​@@GonzoDonzoHigher than average IQ and performance in school are two completely separate measures.

[@GonzoDonzo]

@@mikafoxx2717 not in my case

[@SmigGames]

@@GonzoDonzo That's a good point but at least you're mixing intelligence with effort. In fact, it seems like reacting to a child's intellectual successes and failures by focusing on effort rather than intelligence leads to better outcomes, especially more tenacity, less quitting, and more focus on solving problems rather then impressing authority figures (growth mindset Vs fixed mindset, according to Carol Dweck). With IQ tests, you're trying to isolate the concept of G as much as possible, and I'm not sold that that's something most people should do.

[@petrumoga4904]

Amazing video, good job❤

[@Alex0Etges]

Thanks V, I got a lot out of this video, I am preparing for a test in June. I wonder the best way to train? What might be the best source of motivation?

[@markos3884]

One thing you failed to mention was how the free online test corresponded to the actual test. Were they accurate? How much did the scores differ? How similar were the questions? Did your score improve if you took the test multiple times? All these questions seem really interesting to me and I would appreciate it if you could answer some of them. Otherwise this was an awesome insight into the IQ world. Great job!

[@ERMOONSaladino3]

I'm smarter than you because my IQ is 300%.

[@bubaHRV]

I took one online IQ test at age 12 and one official one at age 17. Both gave exactly the same number and relatively similar questions (of course, both asked for my age).

[@happyhippo1043]

Online tests tend to have a higher average score because people who already enjoy this kind of thing are more likely to take them. So the number may not necessarily be inaccurate but possibly inflated.

[@ketchumuu]

Online iq test is like trying to measure wind speed using a potato

[@ivankaramasov]

​@@ketchumuuThat is actually possible, but hardly accurately 😂

[@cogmedtrades355]

Here’s a way it can be useful. When I was a kid teachers wanted to place me in special education due to failing grades. My mother had me take an IQ test and it came back well above average, proving it was not due to any intellectual challenges. This led to a bunch of tests until we finally found that my poor performance in class was actually due to moderate hearing loss! I couldn’t hear what the dang teacher was saying and so had a harder time learning.

[@mariapilarme]

I tell you teachers are not smart at all. I feel for you ❤

[@PH4RX]

How does moderate hearing loss work and how was it not noticed earlier? I mean if you couldn't hear the teacher, then there must have been others that you couldn't hear as well.

[@The_Foole]

This is like how it was for me, except it was poor, maybe moderate, eyesight. I remember, I think, about once every year me and a few other students would meet with the school district’s nurse and they would test the eyesight. I did not do too good then and I knew that, and every time after the last few meetings they would ask something along the lines of “do you had trouble seeing”, to which I always denied, mainly because I did not want glasses. My grades suffered because of that, as well as some othre difficulties.

[@kora4185]

Something similar happened to my dyslexic brother (at a time and country this was not even well known), and my mom just put the test in front of them and said ‘well see, it’s not him who is lacking, is you who are unprepared to teach great minds’ (he cringes hard at this till today 🤣) then sent him to a Montessori school where he thrived

[@LowKickMT]

you cant be that smart if you didnt realize that you couldnt understand the teacher tbh 😂

[@coolbrotherf127]

As someone who got a 135 on an official IQ test, I wouldn't say that I was born some obviously genius kid who always got perfect grades in school. I have generally decent memory and comprehension skills, but I still had to work hard to succeed in subjects I didn't have a natural nack or interest for. My current intelligence was mostly from my hard work both in and out of school to become a smarter person a little bit everyday. Good performance in school specifically is so much more of a personality thing than an intelligence thing. People who are naturally studious and disciplined are going to to well usually regardless of intelligence, but people of even the highest intelligence but who are way more free spirited and wishy-washy with their studying will appear to be struggling with school instead of just being apathetic to the grades they get. External motivations from family will make some kids work much harder than average to make sure they are at the top of the class in every subject.

[@gronodon]

Here’s the thing: I used to be a middle school music teacher and went through all the special education and teaching strategy classes. What they don’t tell you is that a student’s IQ generally predicts their success in a traditional classroom setting, and is honestly a pretty poor judgment of individual intelligence outside of that very specific environment. When I was still an observing teacher prior to student teaching, I was in a music classroom doing recorders and a non-verbal autistic student was participating. As soon as they started their ear training exercises, he was the only kid that got every note right in less than a second and would patiently wait for the class to catch up to him. He had perfect pitch and knew exactly what he was doing, but due to his communication skills he struggled in classrooms that were simply a whiteboard and a lecture. When you gave him a recorder in an open classroom though? He became an extremely gifted young musician who was having a ton of fun and learning a lot!

[@johnchessant3012]

30:12 I feel like you should've mentioned Lewis Terman's "genetic studies of genius" here. This was a longitudinal study where kids in the Bay Area (since Terman worked at Stanford) were given IQ tests, and Terman would keep tabs on the highest scorers and compare their eventual life outcomes to the general population. Contrary to his expectation, the vast majority of his "Termites" had mundane adulthoods and fared no better than a random sample of people with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. And the real kicker: two eventual Nobel Prize winners, physicists William Shockley and Luis Walter Alvarez, grew up in the Bay Area and were tested, but did not score high enough to be included in the study.

[@imightbebiased9311]

Some funny stuff happens in a lot of those Stanford studies. When they went back to the marshmallow test kids 40 years later, that study that supposedly showed that patience as a kid helps you later in life, the results showed no statistical difference between the patient kids and the impatient ones in any meaningful category.

[@Crimsonwhocares]

Probably because we have population wide studies showing high IQ predicts exactly what you would think it predicts like salary.

[@onehorsetoomany8006]

@@imightbebiased9311 It's possible that over half of soft-science studies are unreproducible. This is doubly true if they involved children.

[@aceman0000099]

He didn't really mention individual studies, because he looked at meta-analysis studies. Lewis Terman's results might have shown no correlation, but 20 other very similar studies (as you can see in the video) gave significantly different correlations. You really need a sample size of 8 billion to get any accuracy, even then there will be flaws in the testing strategy.

[@onehorsetoomany8006]

Children develop at different rates, and just a few months equivalent development can make a huge difference in their scores. Even if kids are the exact same age, to the day, the differences in how fast they develop makes the results extremely unreliable. Wait until they're at least 25 if you want meaningful IQ test results.

[@hormigator]

Dear Derek, I wanted to thank you for the content you create. Your videos "How Quantum Computers Break The Internet... Starting Now" and "Math's Fundamental Flaw" motivated me to complete my remaining subjects for my Computer Science degree in Argentina, which I had left untouched for a few years. Thank you very much.

[@l3gacyb3ta21]

Woah that's awesome! Congrats :>

[@RealCatWeekly]

Congratulations

[@MrZWolfy]

Congrats! Getting over the last few subjects can be the toughest part of the degree. Kudos!

[@Rick-em8bm]

YAY!!!!!! 👏👏👏👏🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

[@MarianoLu]

🎉congratulations!

[@theproceedings4050]

I had to take one, very glad I was never told the results though. That kind of stuff really screws with a lit of people's heads.

[@frankhooper7871]

8:45 - I came up with 17 before the choices appeared LOL. Interesting to see that the US SAT test is basically an IQ test - I did well on my SAT, although my high school grades overall didn't reflect this LOL. I've also always done well on 'for-fun' IQ tests. The only subjects I really excelled at in school were foreign languages; I studied Spanish, German and French in high school, and also took night classes in various other languages.

[@guygrotke8059]

I'm 71 now. Took a Stanford-Binet test at age 10, so I got into a gifted program at school. I am convinced that higher IQ just makes it easier to learn. It does not mean you WILL learn, WILL succeed. WILL make a good income, etc. People with lower IQs can do all of those, they just have to work harder. I have always been exceptionally lazy, so I excel at things that interest me and I enjoy. You could see this as just being more efficient: Not bothering with things you don't like. I didn't graduate from high school with a very high GPA, but aced the ACT. I graduated from college with honors because I concentrated in a field of study I enjoyed. I worked in medical research for 11 years, and my boss asked if I would like to attend the medical school he taught at. I declined because I knew from the doctors I worked with that that path was very strenuous, with limited rewards. About that time the first personal computers became available, which had always interested me. I ended up shifting to computer programming, and did very well in that field for the rest of my working life.

[@DavidSprings]

My experience almost exactly, up to the college grad thing. I took my first college class at 17, and still lack one semester for a 4-year degree almost 50 years later.

[@iota-09]

i'd say that's correct but then when you add in certain variables things get... confusing. like for example, i'm autistic and last time i took an iq test it was pretty high, i can't remeber the exact value but i'm fairly sure between my lowest and highests tests i took in between 112 and 154 in terms of score, so i'm gonna guess my latest was around 130-140... but the thing about autism as many know is that unless you're hyperfixated on something, learning can be excruciatingly hard for an autistic person, and in my case i also have fairly poor memory, stuff i may have learned with passion years ago i completely forgot about, naturally part of that is just not having put to practice that knowledge enough, but just to give an idea, i even forgot how to ride a bike... twice. the best way to view iq is in terms of untrained potential, what you could possibly do -assuming equal motivation and ambition as of at the time of the test- at the time of taking the test and how well before any training and preparation. like if i started, i dunno, playing the flute right now? i might do better than most other beginners... but the path forward after the beginning is completely an incognita due to far too many variables with in my case the biggest one being my mental condition. and the worst part is that stiuff like this will make people expect more of you when you in truth you can achieve less in the long run, just because you can achieve more in the short run(and even then it depends on the context)

[@noahhager1187]

absolutely, same problem, I can pick up skills and once I get it it becomes so ingrained that it just becomes a part of my everyday interaction with the world, however I can't study to save my life.

[@coalasoad]

Must be nice to be able to do anything

[@JamesJNothingIsTooSensitive]

This is known as the discipline problem. Smart people don't have to struggle to learn as kids, so we don't learn a good work ethic. Thing come so easily to us, that we usually don't learn how to work hard. Meanwhile people not as smart struggle, and so they learn discipline, work ethic, etc. This is why then tend to do super well in school, up until they hit college where suddenly most "smart" people need to do things like study. But they never learned *_how_* to study because... well... they never needed to previously, where other kids have mastered the skill. This is why you *_really need_* to separate kids by abiltiy from a *_very young age_* and that way you can challenge them. Because everyone *_needs_* to be challenged, so they can *_learn_* to deal with the adversity of difficult subjects. This is the *_real_* reason so many people of above average intellect, don't have successful lives. Because they don't learn how to deal with the stresses of hard work and so when they're older everyone expects them to already know how... and they fail. Parents need to know what their kids are capable of, and ensure they are *_challenged._* I'm one of those lucky few who can even get through college without studying... but that kind of level is *_very rare_* and I do not have the discipline to force myself to study things I'm not interested in as a result.

[@Cook66]

This may be the most elaborate way anyone has ever bragged about their IQ. I think even Mr. Hawking would be impressed by this one! (/s good video!)

[@BlueRice]

people always brag about themselves. i always put myself down. i realized theres two type of people. one whos over confident and brag about themselve and those whose has low self esteem and put themselves down. kind of like one who is fearless and the other is terrified of risk. need to be in the middle to best the best of both world?

[@brocolive1950]

​​​​​​​@@BlueRice There's a wide range in between. People often mistake low self esteem with humility, and any positive description of yourself, or showing confidence, as bragging. There's no problem with "bragging" as long as you know your worth and describe it fairly to others. That "fair" part is actual humility. Don't exagerate it, don't devaluate yourself either, be fair to your worth : be humble. That's the difference between humility and low self esteem. A humble person can brag, as long as it's true, fair, without exageration. A low self esteem person won't brag, because that person doesn't believe it has anything worth bragging about. When describing themselves, the humble person will fairly moderate its positive sides to avoid wrongly exagerating them, just like it does with its negative sides, while the low self esteem person will overly moderate, or rather, wrongly devaluate its positive sides, and exagerate its negative sides. Humility is fair moderation, low self esteem is exagerated devaluation. Also, a humble person moderates towards truth, not towards pleasing whoever's listening. That would be hypocrisy, deforming the truth and your beliefs to try to control how others perceive you. Often out of _fear of their negative reactions_ (learned from past traumas that generally don't apply anymore, but stay ingrained). I see that as a mistake that people often make, I believe that catering to others is very different from humility. But most people don't really know their worth, or estimate it differently. There's worth based on your own judgement, or based on others'. Good confidence lets you believe in your own judgement and base your worth on it. But it doesn't mean you'd disregard others' judgement. It means you do what you believe to be true, and will disregard others if you believe them to be wrong. Confidence is not bragging. Confidence is believing in your own judgement, it's different from high self esteem, but tends to go together because, as there's worth to find in most people, one leads to another. A confident person will describe itself positively, just like a bragger. But one has fair and moderated judgement while the other has not and exagerates it to get others' attention or advertise himself higher than he actually is to feel better. There's a range of confidences, between those who only listen to their own judgement and ignore others' and those who ignore their judgement and only listen to others'. There's a range of humilities, between those who assume they're the best without any second thought, and those who make sure to check or be moderate if there's any doubt and try to be as fair as possible. A bragger would be a confident person with low humility, but a person can be both confident and humble, describe itself positively, without it being bragging. Yes, risks should be accounted for, otherwise you'd be an idiot. But do not fear them, it will only hinder your decisions. Evaluate the risks, fairly, make a good, fair decision, and act upon it. If your fear makes every risk seem like a fatality, remember that most people gueninely don't care too much about what each other does or says just like you don't care too much about them. People are generally just looking for entertainment, and sometimes for some meaning : a cool story, a cool moment, a cool activity, a cool compagny, cool relationships... You might create an impression, but it really doesn't matter, they don't really care about it, that's not what they're looking for

[@BlueRice]

@@brocolive1950 you word it nicely. I'm not that articulate when it comes to English.

[@andy347]

I was thinking the same thing!

[@reiniernn9071]

​@@brocolive1950 Nice comment. But one deginition I see a little different. I define bragging as telling things about yourself you cannot prove or cannot fullfill. (And may be even claiming the results of the work from other people as your own work) Confidence is telling people exactly what you can and if asked you'll prove it. And NOT claiming the results from other people as youre own.

[@hardlyb]

Like everyone else, I took a lot of those pencil and paper tests when I was in school. I never felt they were very good. For one thing, they weren't very hard, so getting a perfect score would still give you a max IQ of 140 or so, and they were very much of a muchness - they basically test how well you would do in the SAT, for instance. But once, because I agreed to be part of a control group for a study being run by a friend of a friend, I was given an IQ test administered by a psychologist, where you repeated tunes, put blocks together, etc., etc. It took a lot longer than the pencil and paper tests. I still didn't believe this measured 'intelligence' (whatever that is), but the process was very interesting, and I felt it was getting at 'something'. By the way, I agree with Hawking. In my experience, the people who really care about their IQ's are generally B-level types who are frustrated they aren't A-level. All the really impressive people I know couldn't care less that number, and I suspect most of them have no idea what it is.

[@7horizon773]

Wild that Spartanburg South Carolina was shown @ 23:57. That brutalist architecture of the Dennys building is always the biggest middle finger to the otherwise dredged and overlooked city compared to its counterpart Greenville

[@justinvandermerwe5281]

My friend's uncle was a card carrying member of Mensa and very proud of how "intelligent" he was. He used the fingers on his right hand to test if a hedge trimmer was working. Luckily the doctors were able to succesfully re-attach all 4 fingers.

[@MaticTheProto]

Yeah… theoretically oriented people sometimes are completely inept when it comes to normal things in life

[@zedx4749]

So, He is getting more sensory inputs to classify that the trimmer is working. his method gives you three main sensory inputs (Visual, audio, pain) while other methods are giving you mostly 2 inputs. That's how intelligence works

[@olafzijnbuis]

I am a member of Mensa since 1978 Some are very successful and others fail There are members that are unemployed while others own companies. There are bus drivers and a 747 pilot One thing they have in common is that they are easy to get on with. They are interested in just about everything. For me, it is more about the social aspect. For others, it is a support group for patients...

[@Robyphus]

this is funnier when you know mensa means dumb/idiot in spanish

[@highdefinist9697]

The situation sounds relatable. The answer to "how much is 2+2?" might be "5", but it is certainly not "don't put your hand there".

[@grey5135]

I never thought about motivation being a factor but its so obvious once you said it. Being genuinely motivated and interested in something can make a world of difference in your performance across-the-board, it's like your working memory and attention span increase dramatically when you're actually interested and motivated lol.

[@Flight-gj7gw]

Id say a positive mood also somewhat correlates to a better score

[@ronblack7870]

yes if you don't care you may not finish which reduces your score

[@MrWorth66]

As that part of the video played, and an image of a card with text "what number comes next" was shown, my first thought was 'i dont care [what number comes next]' it made me chuckle. Motivation is definitely a huge factor, and certainly motivation arising from possible negative consequences. I wonder how many people were motivated to pass because a fail would mean forced sterilization.

[@AIuzky]

If you are lazy, you won't try your best and you won't get your best score.

[@xandror]

If you aren't motivated to succeed, or are unable to succeed, it really doesn't matter, you are going to fail either way, so the test still works.

[@rosswillson1077]

Quality and efficiency of answers are an important factor of test taking strategy when taking an IQ test

[@timgurr1876]

An interesting video. I’m not trained in any of this but from observing my own kids and grandchildren I have found that each has a ‘gift’ of doing something better than other things. Not the same gifts. Somehow each individual has a tendency in excelling at something. I think parenting plays a major role in motivation of kids to excel and be good at something. It’s obvious that some kids learn faster than others. However, the ability to learn should never be looked upon as a heirarchy in determining someone’s worth to society. Each people is unique and has something to offer even if it is as simple as a smile that improves another’s day.

[@mhorworshipper7456]

Nobody is determining someone’s worth to society but yourself, by belittling gifted people in as a teachable ability and taking the credit for yourself

[@radical_rat]

It seems strange to me that people trying to identify a "g factor" that was static from birth would include vocabulary in the test, since that is... pretty obviously not something you're born with, and that changes drastically over a lifetime.

[@erythrocebuspatas]

Including a vocabulary part was meant to eliminate the impact of the specific vocabulary-related affinity to capture the underlying g.

[@ddognine]

You forgot that IQ is mental age / actual age which takes into account that people know more as they get older.

[@sleepmore8587]

The point of "g" is that is captures a diversity of different intelligences. The "g factor" comes from the general factor in a factor analysis.

[@leslierhorer1412]

It does change some and in some cases. It does not change drastically. Did you not watch the video?

[@radical_rat]

@@leslierhorer1412 I don't know about you, but my vocabulary has definitely changed drastically since I was born

[@ryanrobison8973]

Thought anyone else might find this interesting but as a child I scored a 129 (scaled to adult test scores) on a formal IQ test given by a psychology and later in life, while suffering from severe depression and recovering from a concussion a year prior, I scored a 102. 2 years later it was up to 117 and I feel like it's slowly getting back to the original 129. It's weird to be able to see the impact of things like clinical depression and concussions on cognitive functions like that.

[@popcornyumm]

Dude why are you getting so many iq tests lol

[@wicowan]

dude made it his personal quest

[@Thicbladi]

@@popcornyummbecause some schools like to measure that if they are interested I mean I’m 14 and have had my iq measured 5 times now I think my most recent score was 135 and my first one was 129

[@Humanaut.]

Yeah. I scored 115 and in prolonged times of chronic stress (over years) I really felt myself getting dumber and dumber / slower and slower. Chronic stress can ("temporarily") lower your IQ by -14 points. Also had/have a Lyme disease infection that can cause psychomotor retardation. It's definitely not static but I think the plasticity is more downward than upward. I do think each one of us has a different upper limit which is genetically determined.

[@d_anzen4517]

well the video clearly show that there are other factors other than residual factors and I think that's why there are people that think IQ test are completely useless,I mean think about it those other factors can add up like more than dozens of points, and a difference of 10 point can put you on above average tier or in genius tier but on the other hand the corelate on different meta analysis are too big to say that it is just a coincidence so I think that there need to be a better way in scoring so we can get a better more accurate result such as increasing the points so that the other factors other than g factors wont put you on genius tier while you actually should have on above average tier and it is interesting to see that taking multiple test will make you lingering on your original test so I think to get more accurate result the test should be done multiple times and not just one time

[@chadmichael8021]

In corporate to earn high, it's about how good you are at building relationships. Very occasionally it's high technical skill but it's predominantly people who can build trust easily. You don't need to be especially technically brilliant, just know how to get the most / what you want out of people.

[@pngCOATS]

i was searching for this, a comprehensive video about IQ and every differing opinion and interpretations

[@nathan_middleton_]

I think one of the other important factors to consider about IQ testing is that when people see those results as fixed, and choose to integrate that into their sense of identity, it causes issues for people all throughout the spectrum. People at both ends of the spectrum may experience a reduction in effort and growth as a result of their scores, either because it's low and they think they're not smart enough to try, or because they score highly, think they're smart and don't need to work as hard. Much like all metrics, it's a useful indicator of performance, but like you suggested, it is moveable and doesn't define someone's character. Someone who gets a high score still needs to work to maintain their advantage, and those who get lower scores can work to improve their scores and better their outcomes.

[@joewaun894]

THIS i was told throughout my childhood that i was a VERY gifted kid i remember getting tested in all sorts of ways, and because i had that mentality i stopped trying as hard, i still tried tho just not as hard i eventually fell behind. im an adult now and i do genuinely believe im an idiot at 25 i struggle to do a fair amount of basic math. its difficult to explain but i sort of got retaught math several times different ways and it made me confused when i was young, and even now i get like very anxious when i have to do math even with a calculator. I personally believe i was a very intelligent kid but thought my environment and a couple of other factors, mainly environmental and mental health have made me less intelligent. i used to read at a college level in 5th grade understand complex ideas and have conversations about things that would baffle others. and now i work in a factory because i couldn't go to college. and i see the kids that were considered my peers on an intellectual level doing amazing things, working for and with schools in their 20s

[@werrkowalski2985]

@@joewaun894 Maybe you have had educated parents that pushed you to study and so on. Or alternatively you had one or few subjects you were good at and not the rest? Your parents are a HUGE factor in childhood, intelligence is about 0,2 heritable in childhood (much higher in adulthood), meaning parents and environment have a big effect.

[@Zdman2001]

@@joewaun894 I think it varies. My parents told my brother and I had scores that now seeing the spectrum, was impossible (or extremely unlikely). But, I just looked at how I did in general vs the people around me and adjusted accordingly. So, your personality is probably another big factor on how the score impacts you.

[@FRANK-pp4rn]

I'm also surprised they didn't discuss ADHD. It would cause someone to do worse on standardized tests but still have a high intelligence. Other things like generated anxiety disorder would also prob have the same effect. Research routinely shows that standardized tests are poor indicators of working knowledge and intelligence. It favors a certain subset of person.

[@jasonbrown467]

so in other words ignorance is bliss? personally i feel the spirit of these tests is to see how smart someone is and studying for it like the video creator did should have no affect. if you can affect the score by education and studying then i feel the spirit of the reason for the test is not met and the mechanism to be flawed, but thats just my opinion and we all walk around with bias.

[@anameyoucantremember]

I took an IQ test in the 80s before elementary school (it was mandatory for acceptance in the school I was going to go). I got a very high score and the only thing that brought me was totally unrealistic expectations about my performance and education. The pressure from the school and my parents racked up and made me learn to HATE school. It took away my enjoyment of learning and being creative because I felt I was being forced to do and say things I didn't want to just because I was "smarter" than the other kids. Teachers felt intimidated or offended if I said something they didn't expect; they were much more demanding about my performance and the other kids were hostile because the adults around me told me I had the "duty" to show and "use" my intelligence, so I did and that obviously didn't sit well with them. People tend to react negatively to people that they think or are told are smarter than them. High IQ has been completely worthless for me because it has always been a barrier between myself, my perception of myself, the perception others have of me and my ability to have meaningful relationships.

[@Britishfurryrectifiersucker]

Same thing for me during first school. Didn’t do anything for me except show how I’m good at getting high scores on iq tests. Taken by social services at birth, mentally disabled mother who took substances during pregnancy, never met my birth father as he fell off a building in 2016, was misdiagnosed with autism and it was FASD etc etc. I’m going with one of my oldest passions to study and become an electrical / electronic engineer.

[@cleiven3533]

imo it's unethical to give iq tests to children because of this. either they get absurd expectations on them, or they get labeled as stupid and thrown onto the margins.

[@Enemisses]

Very relatable for me, I was given an IQ test early on as a child and scored quite high myself. So all the adults decided to bump me 2 grades in school. This was disastrous because while I had a very strong grasp of mathematics, my ability to read and comprehend was not so good, and no one ever bothered to check that! So I then got send back to where I started the next year, putting me a grade behind instead of 2 ahead. In so many ways this ruined my early life.

[@Mp57navy]

Same happend to me. IMO, the measured IQ does not tell you anything about success in later life. IT can even be detrimental to a child to tell them "you're really smart" over and over again. They stop trying, because they know they are "better". In the end, they lose track of what's taught in school.

[@Apebek]

IQ test before elementary? Is that before the age of 4? That's kinda weird since you haven't learned basic math and reading.

[@s0cializedpsych0path]

I thought I was stupid most of my life, because of undiagnosed autism. Because of this, I didn't try very hard in school (I can't learn surrounded by others... even if they're quiet).... every year I would ace the placement exams, then fail my classes. During my Dx process I was given the Stanford-Binet and scored a 137. I was shocked to find out that I WASN'T stupid, and became a voracious autodidact. Armed with the new belief that I COULD learn anything I put my mind to, and started to lean heavily into my autistic special interests.... After about 15 years of this, I run intellectual circles around my classically educated friends.. and they always get angry and try to prove me wrong when I speak on my A.S.I.s... and then get visibly angry when they can't. I also make unique connections because of my homegrown knowledge set. I see solutions others don't, partly because of my autistic attention to detail, partly because of my auditory/tactile synesthesia, and partly because I wasn't taught in a class or by a teacher... I will say this about me... my "why, why, why?" phase has never ended and Im 39. I don't know how accurate they are on the whole... but if not for the one I was given, I might still be a waste of life... and Im thankful Im not.

[@taqresu5865]

This is a very fascinating subject. I've wondered myself what determines IQ. I didn't know what my IQ score was until about 3 or 4 years ago, when I was officially diagnosed with Asperger's. My family had known since high school I had some form of autism, so I decided to see a psychiatrist to obtain an official diagnosis. They applied the IQ test in addition to the test of my diagnosis. It turns out my IQ is 136, and for clarification, I was a college graduate in my mid 20s when I took my test. But I will tell you right now, it doesn't show my intelligence in a lot of areas, for example, I'm no good with street smarts, and social situations. I can easily think of several situations, where I've been incredibly dumb and stupid, even when compared to other people. My IQ reveal was quite a shock, because throughout my life, I've never felt "smarter" than other people. I've never felt gifted or even "above average." I don't even like revealing my IQ because I don't want to be put a pedestal.

[@thomasmaughan4798]

"I've never felt "smarter" than other people." That is an aspect of Dunning-Kruger not often used as an insult. Highly intelligent people tend NOT to recognize that they are highly intelligent. It takes pages and pages of stupid comments to realize that while I don't feel any smarter, there sure are a lot of s***d people. If you add introverted to the mix, so you are not mixing with people, you won't even notice.

[@YoshMaster]

I took a paid “official” iq test at 18 and got 132. Always had great grades in school with minimal effort. Yet I always had trouble keeping jobs later in life because I was so miserable working and having to make some efforts. I always thought that being so good in school and being “intelligent” actually trained me to take life easy and to dislike making any effort for stuff that aren’t fun to me. So in a way my higher than average IQ became something that hurt me in my life. I had episodes of acute depression from just working 6 months in 40h/week jobs. I just quit everything at 28 and went back to do the only thing I ever liked doing which was being in school lol! Went to university in psychology, did 2 years in economics etc. After having used all my grants I just stopped school again and barely did anything for a few years. Meeting my gf was a blessing as she was ok with me being a stay-at-home dad. So in the end I never actually worked a real job for more than a few combined years in my 39 years.

[@moviesynopsis001]

Nobody likes work my man, they do it so they can afford a wife

[@kiracollins257]

I know that feeling dude. I got 135. My grades in high schools were great with little to no effort. But when in Uni, I enjoy the first half, but then kinda meh for the rest. I am "good" in many topics, but never "great" in a specific topic. That what makes me struggle to find a job, unemployed for like 2 years My tips is that people like me needs to realize, this condition is a blessing and also a curse. Then, just do your best

[@kittyn5222]

​@@moviesynopsis001fuck it, no wife.

[@Poske_Ygo]

Id not trust an IQ test which costs..

[@danielduncan6806]

You sound more lucky than intelligent.

[@chasg5648]

When I was very young, my teachers considered me a dimwit. At some subsequent point early on, I took an IQ test or similar, and it was then clear that I was far from being an idiot, and my teachers had a new label for me, underachiever. Progress takes interesting forms.

[@MadScientist267]

It's about the most useless number there is.

[@adamlouis3725]

if you put stock in online iq tests youre still a dim wit, sorry kid

[@mikebar42]

Congratulations on your achievement

[@ianmccurdy1223]

@@MadScientist267 Presumably you just watched a 30 minute video explaining why the number isn't useless. It sounds like there may be personal factors making you bitter about this topic

[@MadScientist267]

@@ianmccurdy1223 No I'm just aware of the limitations of such a concept. An IQ test measures the extent of the "vision" at the time it was created. It's got a *lot* of issues which is what makes it barely more than an "at a glance". It's nowhere near comprehensive enough 🤷‍♂️ Don't project your shortcomings on me lol

[@lexluthor6906]

i was part of a large a study back in the 70's and 80's and had my iq tested many times in a lab. it always started with a medical exam, if i wasnt healthy they sent me home until i was. small, square, white room with nothing on the walls. simple table and 2 chairs. the test consisted of only things you cant learn, but either have the capacity for or not. for instance they would put different shapes in a row, let you look at it for x seconds, then they would time you on how fast you could re-construct it. then they would keep adding to the string until you couldnt reconstruct it anymore. next you might have to reconstruct the pattern backwards. then there were the series patterns, much like the "radio button" tests i see in school sometimes the proctor would only say the simple instructions, but wouldnt speak or answer questions.

[@DarthMakroth]

we all had to take an iq test when I was 11 in my primary school to get into secondary school and I did very badly as my older brother had just ended his life, I had chronic migraines, I have slow processing and I'm in the bottom 1% of working memory and honestly I didn't really care about it, but then in secondary school I got straight A*s doing further maths maths and computer science, and when I was 12 I did a programming job for Microsoft. I think iq definitely exists but it's hard to measure since there will be systematic bias, for example normal people who have had really easy lives, have private tutors, just do better, than smart people who have had really tough lives.

[@hansklimstra5987]

As a high school teacher, one semester I was given an English special educcation class to teach. I soon discovered that it was emotional intelligence that was lacking. I brought in the book "Bambi" realizing that it was possible that a parent may not have read to them. They were transfixed Also I spent a great deal of time telling them that interpersonal skills, ie,. being kind and nice to people, being co-operative, etc. and learning a skill would be much more important than knave intelligence. I hope that helped in their future lives.

[@burpie3258]

amazing!

[@atuvera9021]

You might not know, but maybe you'll be the teacher these children will remember forever.

[@oldRighty1]

Errr... educcation? Knave intelligence?

[@hansklimstra5987]

meant "mere inrelligence"

[@christopherellis2663]

Why do you expect us to believe that you teach high school? Oh! In the US, of course. Your English is disastrous

[@dekev7503]

When I was a freshman in college, I took the IQ test and scored 122. Last month I took the test as a 2nd year grad student and scored 149. My bachelors degree was in Electrical Engineering and my graduate degree is in Microelectronics Engineering, both highly numerical and might have played a role in my presumed improved ability to recognise patterns , but a 27 point difference between my 19 and the 30 year old IQ scores ( a bump from highly intelligent to near genius) is too large for me to take the test as a serious measure of intellectual prowess.

[@Lolwutdesu9000]

Or, just maybe, you've intellectually developed?

[@matiaskaplan1880]

One of the biggest issues for the IQ field is the high test-retest variance

[@trolloftime5340]

@@Lolwutdesu9000psychologists say iq can never increase though, so that’s a total contradiction.

[@nagoshi01]

Not that it matters, but EE also. I agree a score jumping that much across the distribution is pretty suspect, assuming equal levels of mental readiness and motivation each test. About how much of your tests were rote pattern recognition? This is something that is purposefully improved upon immensely after a years long curriculum for a field like this.

[@pipMcDohl]

"too large for me to take the test as a serious measure of intellectual prowess." So what's the point of talking about it? it's not like you are, by yourself, a sample of data worth studying So is your comment just for the sake of showing off big numbers and achievements?

[@brianfoster7064]

Alfred Binet created the IQ test. It was meant to help determine which level of courses to place them in. The idea was that grades (K12) were meaningless and what mattered was placing everyone into the appropriate class for their level of understanding of the course. This was necessary to help place rural students newly moved to the city but lacked equivalent education to those students who began their education from an early age due to living in the city. In the USA it became something else.

[@australianoutback]

29:24 Can you make a video explaining how they can detect if someone is trying to deliberately fail the test please?

[@IslandHermit]

It would be interesting to see how the results from the online tests you took correlated with the official test.

[@Kriss_941]

My guess is poorly, or rather, I suspect there would be a correlation, but that the online tests on average would result in a higher score... Nobody wants to get a "bad score" and the people making most of those tests want people taking them. So I'd wager they are more likely to inflate the results so more people are happy with the results and maybe talk about that test they took to a friend or whatever which drives more people to the test.

[@tommax1626]

@@Kriss_941 Well i got an 85 online, so i dont want to know my real IQ :-)

[@micahphilson]

Usually sites make you pay and give them at least your name and email to get your results. They're good for training, but I'd recommend never just handing out money and personal information like that for something like this online. At least unless you know for sure it's a reputable source.

[@masaboih]

@@Kriss_941 That is the first thing that comes to mind obviously but they are actually rather predictive. They are basically just shorter versions of the official tests. The legitimate online tests are done by respected organizations in psychology, and the brand of accuracy and reliability is worth much more to them than the initial hypothetical traffic from better scores. Ofc there are inaccurate tests with the purpose that you stated, but you should be doing the legit ones. There are multiple free online tests that are also longer from different organizations that are more accurate than Mensa's online test.

[@GuitarGoone]

there are studies on that and if remember correctly such online test tend to inflate iq by ~10-15 points

[@elainetwum3465]

The first online iq test i scored 81. I never took a test bf, had no idea what they were like. I was quite anxious and felt pressured so I simply flew through the test, i had better things to do. Waited awhile and took a second iq test. Same thing. Felt pressured/anxious but took couple deep breaths. Got tired of the whole thing, had better things to do. This time scored 103. Still wanted a proper score. Waited again, took several deep breaths. This time, i was still anxious but took my time along with deep breaths. Scored much better. I always thought i was "smarter than the average bear". I was satisfied and definitely had no intention of taking another one. I don't like tests or even forms. I accomplished my goal and am content.

[@dirt_xo]

the first score you took is more accurate . . . sorry man but re-trying the same IQ test isn't accurate

[@nitory5637]

12:56 Answer: C. We're just counting the dots. In the first row the sum of all points is equal to twenty-seven (9, 9, 9), in the second row the sum of all points is also twenty-seven (7, 10, 10), in the third row the sum of the points of the first two figures is equal to nineteen, which means we need 8, we simply find the desired figure in the answer which has eight points and also comes out twenty-seven (11, 8, 8)

[@zkirock7084]

I came with a different conclusion, but my final answer was C as well. And i was searching for some confirmation in the comment. Tnx for giving another example so i can be more sure it's C. :)

[@magpies_myth2206]

What I noticed is that the third row is simply whatever is in the second row but reflected vertically. You can also see that with the method you used with the sum of the last two rows being equal in all three examples.

[@ttamttam1522]

My SAT scores rose 300 points on the 1600 point scale just because I could afford to take the test a second time. I ended up surpassing a classmate of mine who initially scored higher than me, but could not afford to take the test twice. That doesn't strike me as particularly fair. IQ seems like a fine tool for research but it needs to be used carefully and always taken somewhat skeptically, especially when comparing people across demographics.

[@janick01ify]

I got a 21 act took a class then I took it again, I got a 21. You were nervous the first time. Do you have Anxiety?

[@silverandexact]

This! I took the PSAT (optional) as practice. I can be a bit of a slow test taker due to excessive anxiety. I felt I did poorly on that test so I bought a used SAT prep book, spent the summer going through the book myself, and on the actual SAT my math/language combined score went up about 150 points (almost the maximum possible, to an 800 language and 760 math). Obviously I did not get that much smarter in one year, I simply familiarized myself with the test.

[@spandanmandal5356]

As has been said in the video IQ tests seem trainable like the sat. I think it all boils down to how much motivation or anxiety you had compared to the first time around.

[@anthonynicholson5523]

Or if you did sleep well, your blood sugar is a little low, you are I'll etc...

[@ozmer]

SAT is predictive of IQ but it's not an IQ test. It's a measure of high school english and math.

[@markg7963]

Took an IQ test as a young high school student. The results were that I was a lot more “intelligent” than I had self assessed up to that point. As a result I started taking education and responsibility a lot more seriously. Which helped me succeed in places that others didn’t. The downside is that I suppose the opposite could result for somebody with a lesser result. Lesson is that the education and responsibility part will probably do more than the actual IQ part, so do the right thing, and study, make responsible decisions, and you’ll be fine!

[@utahstock12]

Rick Rosner who is one of the highest modern IQ people had basically the negative experience you are talking about. He thought he was super genius, then his result was maybe 130-140 so very good but nothing crazy. This led him to not care much about things since he was not going to be smart enough to change the world. Only later he learned that the test he had taken had a maximum score which is what he had received. His IQ wasn't 130, it was some unknown amount above 130. He went on to lead a super weird life including going back to high school to do it over as the cool kid and suing who wants to be a millionaire. recommended rabbit hole if you have time.

[@aleef1735]

The fact that you took education and responsibility a lot more seriously is a measure of your IQ and not the result of the IQ test. The test result may have given you a boost in motivation and confidence for a while but with or without it your IQ would have probably taken you on a very similar path. In any case, you can't tell someone with a low IQ to be responsible and try to learn more things because it's not something they would do even if they know it would help them in life.

[@pauldow1648]

Teenagers. Youth. May have growing up anxieties , troubles that cause a lag in focused early learning and education.

[@purepeter4737]

You sound like the perfect worker drone

[@purepeter4737]

@@desertPerson traumatize really lol. Toughen up my child

[@---cv8mn]

thank you for the video

[@thehawk217]

Intelligence is not something to be proud of I’m not talking about hard work, or anything like that, but run-of-the-mill intelligence, the kind that means you can put less effort into learning things and still do well/understand stuff better than other people. People get so much praise for it and I see no point or merit in that. Feeling proud of being smart is as empty and meaningless as feeling proud for being beautiful. It’s not something you created or worked towards, it’s an arbitrary characteristic completely out of your control that you were born with. It’s pointless to feel proud of something that’s totally out of your hands. It doesn’t reflect on the kind of person you are. What’s more important is the decisions you make, how you behave, and what you do with the hand you’re given in life. Those are things to be proud of.

[@allesaufanfang-sarah]

work with what you have has proven a helpful motto to me and I agree with what you say, though it can be hard to put into practice

[@DrDeuteron]

Naw.

[@zaidalakad1888]

It would be interesting to know what your average IQ was for the tests you took online to compare it to the actual test results and see how accurate these online tests were at determining a persons IQ

[@amind1317]

Ya, I'm a looser who scored 132 on an online Ravens Matrices that I paid $15 for to make me feel better about being a looser living in my van.

[@WhatWouldVillainsDo]

@@amind1317 I was told 121 at age 9, and have had to go thru some stuff with therapists, phycologists and they said it's most likely much higher than that and I have been sleeping in ditches homeless.

[@ericjiang7986]

I agree that iq test is flawed but intelligence does have differences in different ppl. This is common sense and it does sound unpleasant but it’s true. It’s just iq test may not necessarily be the way to measure one’s intelligence. Einstein was determined to have a learning disability in middle school but turned out his super smart

[@ericjiang7986]

@@amind1317 u can be smart but not able to access education or skill training programs. Or he directed to the wrong direction. If Einstein never was found by Max Plank, he would be a clock fixer forever

[@ericjiang7986]

@@amind1317 if u know ur iq is high and u got a better learning ability, u can start to learn skills such as trading skills and etc or whatever skill because obviously u can learn faster than others but if u don’t learn no matter how high ur iq is, u still have no skills. If someone is tall but never got into nba, that doesn’t help much neither

[@UbiquitousBooks]

Normally those online IQ tests tell you that you have an IQ of 180 and then offer to sell you a printed certificate with that number on it. I don't know if IQ really measures anything, but if it does then it's probably negatively correlated with having one of those certificates at home.

[@anyfriendofkevinbaconisafr177]

Don't be so hard on yourself ;)

[@chambers5945]

IQ tests should be run by a trained professional.

[@shoelacedonkey]

Haven't you heard the quote by Stephen Hawking at the start of this video? "People who boast about their IQ are losers". And this man was a literal genius.

[@mr.2minutes161]

i firmly believe mine was 95-100 no matter what those online test said, i hope im right since my brain kinda shut down when i see those number type

[@anyfriendofkevinbaconisafr177]

@@shoelacedonkeyHow do you know he was a genius?

[@davidpulsipher3711]

I've taken a couple of IQ tests, mainly because I have multiple learning disabilities including dyslexia and an auditory processing disorder. It affected my scores in more English-based questions. On the other hand, for any problems including math or multiple dementia problem solving I scored rather high because those are the parts of my brain that I've used more and are not inhibited by my learning disabilities.

[@chaseemills]

Back in high school, I had a teacher suggest I attempt to get into the gifted program because I had great grades. To get into the program, you took three tests, where for each one, you can score up to three points. There was a reading test, a math test, and an IQ test, therefore, you could earn a total of 9 points in total. You have to have a total of 6 to get in, but if you managed to get all three points in the IQ test, you immediately got it. To my surprise, I was the lucky rare person that got in via IQ alone. I didn’t ever really understand what that meant, other than the fact that I should’ve been in the program since elementary school. But I was so used to easily passing tests without too much studying, that the gifted program was a huge challenge to me and I struggled tremendously. All this to say, tests are so subjective and it’s difficult to understand what truly makes a person intelligent or let alone, successful based on their so-called tested intelligence.

[@Lord_Melone]

props to whoever is editing the vids, the animations are so good and bring up the videos to an whole better quality

[@GeorgeNoory42069]

High IQ video editor

[@Stierenkloot]

The editing of this video was actually really bad. Which is a little bit ironic. Also, graphics have nothing to do with editing. The graphics were good yes

[@Ben21756]

@@Stierenkloot I thought it was fine, no flaws that could've distracted me from the content at hand. What do you think was bad about it?

[@Stierenkloot]

@@Ben21756 i really noticed how bad it was in this particular video. Just one example look at how obviously fake his video chat with British glasses dude is. At some point they even have a jump cut edit on his screen WHILE Derek is supposedly looking at the guy live. And there are a bunch of other edits and comments that Derek made that are completely out of place and do not add anything of value. In terms of editing and production this video stands out as one of his worst to me. But yeah the graphics are slick.

[@nam3ey]

​@@Stierenkloottimestamp?

[@TimeBucks]

Another excellent and very informative episode.

[@robinsononate87]

Absolutely great

[@brani9568]

👍

[@PunaljittDimasa-yl4xu]

👍

[@riyaakter-hr7lr]

Nice

[@jyothijain8330]

Nice

[@trig1900]

A great balanced video... thanks.

[@s.bridges8461]

When I was but a wee child, the school I attended was part of a government study to see if IQ changed with age. Our entire elementary school of a few hundred in Wichita, Kansas took the Stanford-Binet version starting around 1960 (I can't remember exactly which grade I was in when they started) and it continued for at least 3 years that I remember, but it could have been more. They'd seat an entire grade level at the tables, hand out the tests and pencils, time us, then give us a snack. (The snack should have probably been at the beginning...) Then the next higher grade level would be tested in the same way the next day. A few years later I worked for the same Board of Education district in which the tests were administered. Of course, I snuck a look at my records to see the results.

[@infinity1323]

I scored an extremely high IQ and performed terribly at school. Many years after I graduated school, I now tutor students from middle school to university level and am known to be one of the best tutors in my area. I learned more after my schooling than I ever did at school. I don't put that to having bad teachers, because they couldn't all be bad, but I hated the method of education when I was a child. I now teach children, they way I like to learn. I not only teach them how to do something, I also spend as much time teaching them why they're learning that particular something. I find that this point is very important for about 80% of the kids I teach/taught.

[@schg12]

I thought I was the only one who experienced something like this, good to know I’m not alone.

[@tropicsalt.]

The "why" is very important. It teaches broader knowledge, including compression and reasoning.

[@tjparkour24]

Hard agree here, I strongly believe that if you aren't willing to tell someone WHY they are learning something, that thing probably isn't worth learning. Even for random stuff that individually isn't useful, you can say something like, "Learning how to deal with a wide assortment of random tasks will improve your ability to quickly solve basic problems in day to day life." That's all it takes, just knowing the teacher's personal opinion on what they are teaching makes such a huge difference. When I was in school my worst subjects were always the ones with teachers who shrugged off every question and ordered me back to some standardised crap.

[@pigeonlove]

​@@tropicsalt.The "why" usually does not have a logical answer. A doctor does not need to learn history to do their job, they just need the grades.

[@infinity1323]

@@pigeonlove Actually, Medical History is one of the first subjects taught at medical school.

[@Kkubey]

I took 3 official tests from childhood to adulthood, and I had a significant drop in the second one I took after a traumatic experience, being in a bad mental state overall. I think what you can truely measure in most cases is how well the adults around you took care of you as a child. If your parents are resourceful, you are also more likely to have a good career anyway. But the most important aspect seems to be how well you can focus, which is easier to do if you had a routine as a kid. People who are into science and reading studies in their free time aren't in survival mode, either. I remember two questions during one of the tests that stood out to me as something that could not possibly measure intelligence. One was to name something Goethe has written, the other was what wood and alcohol have in common (although, there were other questions like this one, too). Those are questions that are specifically targeted to experience, and the first one would also lower the score of someone from a different culture.

[@p_mouse8676]

I have seen experiments done with a group of students why did quite some practice tests before, as well as a control group who just went in as is. The group that did a lot of practice scored significantly better. Mood, health, a different way of thinking and even anxieties heavily bias those tests as well. Like you said, all this also heavily depends on you were being raised. One of the reason why IQ tests work very bad for people who are gifted for example. It also says very little in what way someone is intelligent in. There are people who have super high IQ score, but are unable to solve very simple and basic practical problems.

[@nuance9000]

The real problem with IQ and IQ tests are the anthropic biases associated with it. Dolphins are smart, but making an 'IQ' test for dolphins is not the same as making one for humans, and without a general way to measure intelligence, we're just tooting our own horns. I remember when I took an IQ test the first question was "Donkey?" Not a Shrek joke, just basic definitions. Needless to say, I said a donkey is an &$$. I scored below average-

[@assarlannerborn9342]

@@p_mouse8676my guy he mentioned the effects of practice before the test. It was a 8 point increase not THAT significant

[@HaramGuys]

Its called the crystallized intelligence which is strongly associated with knowledge

[@p_mouse8676]

@@assarlannerborn9342 Depending on the score you get, that is somewhere between 6-10%. I call that pretty significant. Also keep in mind that those numbers are averages. We don't know the standard deviation from those numbers.

[@alexkim123]

Zero ads on this video-- 'says a lot about how important this video is to team Veritasium!

[@Dudemon-1]

I got ads.

[@Ace-theCat]

12:56 the answer is C :3 I had to take an IQ test as part of my adhd diagnosis, i took it as an adult so i remember it pretty well and it just felt like a weird mishmash of things and i did get a pretty good score but since i have adhd it doesn't really reflect in my grades and test scores very well. So, i think IQ is a bit bunk if taken without a wider context about a persons background and even with that context i think they should be taken with a heavy grain of salt

[@uglycouzin]

This video summarizes about 8-10 hours of lecture in a college General Psychology course I teach. Thanks for the help Dr. Muller!

[@pranavps851]

He has a PhD?

[@NathanHedglin]

​@@pranavps851r/whoosh

[@theletters9623]

I actually had to take something similar to an IQ test for my autism assessment and I was WAY better at the vocabulary section than any other section to the point where on my assessment there was a note saying that they actually weren't going to give me a general score because the vocabulary section would've skewed my otherwise average score a bit too high for an accurate assessment, so I was just given my individual scores. I also ended up being diagnosed with autism. I don't know if those two things are related but its an interesting story

[@TheTruthWholeTruthNothingButTh]

how do you go about being tested for that?

[@grantking4032]

Posting for notifications when answered

[@AudoricArt]

Same here! My english skills were scored at 120 while my other tests showed pretty average intellegance. Funnily enough though, I'm very well spoken in person and yet I'm an atrosious texter. They decided to just diagnose me with ADD however I struggled a lot socially, and I often wonder if I actually have autism.

[@jjdoom4184]

Hey, good report and good question In fact the height of the verbal ability and autism are correlated. For this reason, autistic people are often overestimated in their basic functions and receive less support

[@somedude6833]

Apparently my vocabulary skills were also the highest score. I’ve not been diagnosed with autism, but exhibit some traits.

[@perplexed2352]

Friend of mine who was in the military was banned from taking IQ tests (within the military) along with two other people because they were the ones who would supervise and admin over the entry IQ tests to see what positions you got sent to train for because after years of doing it they more or less could get insanely high scores on any IQ test (despite being of about "average intelligence") and would keep getting offers to be promoted to higher roles/positions they were otherwise unqualified for to the point they were made exempt from taking them again when being considered for higher roles

[@megans3922]

One thing I’ve thought about in regards to IQ is how much of the correlation is because of thoughts surrounding IQ. For example, someone with a high IQ would see their IQ and know they are very smart and would do well in school because they know they are smart. Someone with a low IQ on the other hand would see their IQ and get discouraged and not try in school and it would feed into their low IQ. I took AP Psych and that was one thing I always wondered during the IQ unit we did.

[@michaelcarey2614]

I always liked this quote, which is attributed (perhaps inaccurately so) to Albert Einstein - "Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

[@TaylorWeston]

I actually really dislike that quote because it might prevent people from subscribing to a growth mindset. I prefer a quote by Joshua Waitzkin, an international chess master and author of The Art of Learning that says "The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability, as opposed to resilience and hard work, we will brittle in the face of adversity."

[@HeiiarchyGameplays]

⁠@@TaylorWeston I believe as humans we do have an “ingrained level of ability” when it comes to a lot of tasks, do we not?

[@spinnerboyz]

@@HeiiarchyGameplays we do, and I think his point is that we should make sure it doesn't prevent us from further exploring possibilities and excelling in other fields outside of the gifts we believe to have been born with.

[@David280997]

@@TaylorWeston If you put this quote in the right context, then there's nothing wrong with it

[@thomasi.4981]

​@@HeiiarchyGameplays We do, but largely, we benefit from not thinking and behaving as though we do, because our thoughts are powerful tools to raise our heights or drag us down. Conditioning is effective, so imagining our own limits is a limiting experience to impose on oneself. A person who believes he can reach 200% and hits 100% is more effective than a person who believes he can reach 100% and hits 80%. The key is that we don't know our precise limits, and no matter how much we think we are experts on ourselves, we will always think our potential higher or lower than the truth. It's best to consider the sky as the limit. We don't know when life can turn around, and we had best be there for it when it does.

[@solarcabin]

138 tested twice with the Stanford-Binet however I struggled in public school and dropped out of high school. Lots of issues with teachers. I eventually got a GED and then a college degree but still struggled socially and was later diagnosed with PTSD. So even if a person is intelligent other issues can effect their ability to be successful in life. I am happy to have had the opportunity to help other people and I think that is a better measure of life success than intelligence or money.

[@minekey949]

Wow

[@doggo6517]

hey, we match (on the number)

[@marcussmorisha1738]

One can have a personality disorder AND have a high IQ...

[@tripwire202]

Similar position. Except that I believe I had a stroke. Digital hugs to you.

[@yeetdeets]

Yea 135, hated school and got piss grades. Schools are designed for the median IQ, don't let it stop you from learning on your own and dreaming big.

[@MediaLieDetector]

I tested in 7th grade back in 1976. 143 IQ. This was also the highest level of the test. During high school, I aced the ASVAB and popped 1400 on the SAT. I took 3 tests online a few years ago and averaged 163 IQ. I retired at age 41 with zero debt. 20 years later, no debt and no maintenance medications. Very little stress. IQ is important but without self discipline, it means little over the span of a lifetime. I also like turtles… 😂😂😂

[@Anonymous-vp9gr]

Greatest bullshitter ever😂😂

[@MediaLieDetector]

@@Anonymous-vp9gr you got me. Everything was true except for the turtle part. 🤣🤣🤣

[@kingjacob3585]

I think the results of the training tests are a better evaluation for iq than a test taken after the training. Since the training test evaluates brute processing abalities whine the test taken after specific training for the test depends a little more on memory

[@MARILYNANDERSON88]

My grandson scored well over 130 on his IQ test. "Don't worry Grandma , he says, I guessed".

[@bummerboomerx]

😭😭🤣

[@inyn_k]

Technically that is also smart cause he guessed well

[@killermakd2015]

​@@inyn_ktechnically u r wrong. In an IQ test of say 100 qs of 5 diff types of qs with 4 options (single correct) each and no negative marking, there's still a (0.25^100)*100 % chance you ll get all of them right if you just guessed. This prob increases for less and less questions guessed. So yeah, intelligent guesses are a thing but then ther are only 4 options per q. Might as well be sheer luck

[@nez14526]

​@@killermakd2015did you think about how small the number is you just stated? 1/2^200? That's about 10^-60. for comparison, a search revealed that the number of stars is in the 10^23 region and the number of atoms in the universe is 10^80ish. with enough questions, random guessing is not a strategy you have to worry about inflating someone's score 😂

[@nez14526]

It's equivalent to winning the powerball lottery jackpot (1 / 292M) 10 times back to back... ain't happening