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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Thanks for the info Derek!

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

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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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