10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
I’m not sure, but I think this is roughly how “look, I did great on the GRE!” would sound to someone already skeptical. It’s the sort of accomplishment that sounds childish to point out outside of a very limited context.
There are two big problems with standardized tests.
First, the standard tests are badly calibrated for measuring the high-performing tail of the distribution. Something like 6% of all GRE takers get a perfect score on the math portion. So GREs won’t separate good from very good.
Second, aptitude for doing GRE-style or IQ-style math problems isn’t known to be a close correlate for real ability. Universities are full of people with stellar test scores who don’t ever amount to anything. On the other hand, Richard Feynman, who was very smart and very hard working, had a measured IQ of something like 125, which is not all that impressive as a test score.
I don’t know a source for the number, but in one of his popular books he mentioned that Mensa contacted him and he responded that his IQ wasn’t high enough, which means it was less than 130.
I suspect that this test emphasized verbal, as opposed to mathematical,
ability. Feynman received the highest score in the country by a large margin
on the notoriously difficult Putnam mathematics competition exam, although he
joined the MIT team on short notice and did not prepare for the test. [...]
It seems quite possible to me that Feynman’s cognitive abilities might have
been a bit lopsided—his vocabulary and verbal ability were well above
average, but perhaps not as great as his mathematical abilities. I recall
looking at excerpts from a notebook Feynman kept as an undergraduate. While
the notes covered very advanced topics—including general relativity and
the Dirac equation—they also contained a number of misspellings and
grammatical errors. I doubt Feynman cared very much about such things.
Why shouldn’t the tests satisfy academics?
Why not use something like the GRE with subject tests, plus an IQ test and other relevant tests?
Crackpot Index:
I’m not sure, but I think this is roughly how “look, I did great on the GRE!” would sound to someone already skeptical. It’s the sort of accomplishment that sounds childish to point out outside of a very limited context.
There are two big problems with standardized tests.
First, the standard tests are badly calibrated for measuring the high-performing tail of the distribution. Something like 6% of all GRE takers get a perfect score on the math portion. So GREs won’t separate good from very good.
Second, aptitude for doing GRE-style or IQ-style math problems isn’t known to be a close correlate for real ability. Universities are full of people with stellar test scores who don’t ever amount to anything. On the other hand, Richard Feynman, who was very smart and very hard working, had a measured IQ of something like 125, which is not all that impressive as a test score.
125???! Sh*t, I’ve got to start working harder. (source?)
I don’t know a source for the number, but in one of his popular books he mentioned that Mensa contacted him and he responded that his IQ wasn’t high enough, which means it was less than 130.
Knowing Feynman, This might well have been a joke at their expense.
According to Feynman, he tested at 125 when he was a schoolboy. (Search for “IQ” in the Gleick biography.)
Gwern says:
Steve Hsu says:
It is a joke at their expense. The question is whether he based it on a true premise.
125 is the average IQ of a Ph.D. I’m not sure what the IQ is for specific domains so I can’t say if that is incredibly low for a Physics Ph.D.
Because people aren’t rational and it’s silly to pretend otherwise?