Once my eldest daughter got into an argument with her first grade teacher because she refused to accept a correction on her "G" test, "Circle all the pictures of things that begin with the letter G". She insisted she had circled everything, and the teacher said she had missed one. I finally broke the deadlock by asking the teacher which one was missed. "This one," she said, pointing. Beth looked her right in the eye and said, "Rifle doesn't begin with G."
The test assumes a certain way of thinking about the world, and a certain group of cultural and educational references in common. For instance, that radishes and potatoes grow underground, and apples and pears grow on trees. I almost missed one of the word puzzles (CARD, BOX, etc.) because I would normally think of ZIP as a prefix to one of them in my national context. It's always that way. MENSA tests are meant to identify MENSA members. They don't measure intelligence.
Off Topic » in reply to I can sort of see his point...
Cultural knowledge
The whole thread (78 posts)
- IQ test
- I didn't realize you could go 2 years back.
- re: I got 3 correct... (n/t)
- And the HZ mean is...23.4 (n/t)
- 24
- me too (n/t)
- The 'Myst' games were a very fun Mensa type test
- Answered 28, got 24
- 21
- Pretty poor test. Many of the questions are meaningless.
- Is it just me, or is the explanation to #8 overly complicated?
- re: IQ test
- I like solving puzzles. (n/t)
- I think Art wins. (n/t)
- I once joined mensa
- 26
- 26
- 19. Ouch. (spoilers in message)
- re: IQ test