Technically yes. You could increase your score on IQ tests by practicing them. But there is no point to doing so.
Your general intelligence (also known as g-factor) matters. IQ is a good metric for general intelligence. IQ is such a good metric for general intelligence that it is often used as shorthand for g-factor. IQ matters because it is a measurement of your general intelligence (g-factor). You could increase your score on IQ tests by practicing them but that won’t increase your general intelligence. It would just cheat the metric. We treat IQ as a stable, intrinsic characteristic because general intelligence is a stable, intrinsic characteristic.
Thank you for your answer, however, the question is not if it is worthy, or useful to practice for IQ test; the question is if it can be done (and, secondarily, how many people do it).
Usually, the ranking of abilities for a task are well correlated with the amount of practice. There is the rare child prodigy who beats the chess grandmaster, but usually all the people who can beat a chess grandmaster have practiced a lot of chess.
Is IQ special in this respect? Is the majority of people who is extremely good at IQ tests just “naturally” extremely good at IQ tests?
The mean IQ is different among different cultures in the United States. Could these differences be explained (at least partially) by different mean levels of preparation? For example, I imagine that if you grow up in a highly competitive culture, and your family presses you hard to achieve good grades, you will more likely also study more for an IQ test.
Short answer: it’s not preparation. Sure, if you study the answer key of a test, you’ll get a better score on that test. However, there’s no known method (including practice) that increases the cognitive ability (Spearman’s g factor) that IQ tests measure. Some IQ tests have no behavioral component at all; they just scan your brain and calculate your IQ.
For a solid primer on IQ, I recommend Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. It’s a consensus report of a task force of the American Psychological Association, so it’s as credible as anything.
Personally, I took an IQ test for toddlers when I was about 3 (my neighbor was a psych grad student who wanted to practice giving the test and my mom wanted a short break from having a toddler). I got a 168 (the limit), surprising my neighbor quite a bit. I had done about as much test prep as the typical toddler (none, unless Sesame Street counts). I haven’t taken an IQ test since then, but my life experience since then indicates that the test was qualitatively accurate.
Some people are naturally good at IQ tests and some people are naturally bad at them, and there’s not much a person can do to change their scores (aside from brain damage, of course). The people who are good at IQ tests have an advantage in any situation where absorbing, remembering, manipulating, and applying information is useful, which is a lot of situations. The people who aren’t have a disadvantage in those situations, and (with our current technology) we have no way to help them.
Enjoy. Keep in mind that it was written 25 years ago. The findings still hold up, but the paper’s forward-looking statements (“this might get better”) didn’t pan out.
I did an iq test years ago and got 126, then did one this morning and got 88, which bothered me. So I looked up the kinds of things that are going on in the tests as it’s been 30 years since I thought in any of these ways, then did one again 1hr later and got 112. For me personally, who never went to a school that focussed on exams or even did them, I have to first understand the framework they want answers in and I feel like I can now improve on that way of thinking and get a higher score so I’m not that impressed with iq tests as a measure of intelligence and in fact the more I think in that way the more I realise how dull it all is
Small quibble—general intelligence varies by age, and IQ tests are age-adjusted. But that’s a small clarification of your basic claim, which is supported by the data as I understand it.
Also, too, one of things g-factor is good for is the ability to learn, and especially the ability to apply previous experience to novel situations. So, the very ability of someone to get better at IQ tests (which when done well are not rote memorization exercises) indicates that there is some “there” there.
I agree that different peoples have different learning curve.
I wonder if perhaps a more appropriate test of “general intelligence” (+ motivation/grit) would be assessing how much you are able to improve in a task, given 1 month to practice.
Probably it is hard to make this work, because you could cheat in the first test doing it terribly on purpose.
Maybe if you have to pass a certain level to start, and then you have a bunch of different kinds of things to learn, but each person gets to specialize in what they do/like best so the test covers both breadth and depth of learning. It would probably take a few years, but the administrator could provide some sort of general certificate of intelligence+grit that potential employers and spouses could check without having to administer the test themselves?
Technically yes. You could increase your score on IQ tests by practicing them. But there is no point to doing so.
Your general intelligence (also known as g-factor) matters. IQ is a good metric for general intelligence. IQ is such a good metric for general intelligence that it is often used as shorthand for g-factor. IQ matters because it is a measurement of your general intelligence (g-factor). You could increase your score on IQ tests by practicing them but that won’t increase your general intelligence. It would just cheat the metric. We treat IQ as a stable, intrinsic characteristic because general intelligence is a stable, intrinsic characteristic.
Thank you for your answer, however, the question is not if it is worthy, or useful to practice for IQ test; the question is if it can be done (and, secondarily, how many people do it).
Usually, the ranking of abilities for a task are well correlated with the amount of practice. There is the rare child prodigy who beats the chess grandmaster, but usually all the people who can beat a chess grandmaster have practiced a lot of chess.
Is IQ special in this respect? Is the majority of people who is extremely good at IQ tests just “naturally” extremely good at IQ tests?
The mean IQ is different among different cultures in the United States. Could these differences be explained (at least partially) by different mean levels of preparation? For example, I imagine that if you grow up in a highly competitive culture, and your family presses you hard to achieve good grades, you will more likely also study more for an IQ test.
Short answer: it’s not preparation. Sure, if you study the answer key of a test, you’ll get a better score on that test. However, there’s no known method (including practice) that increases the cognitive ability (Spearman’s g factor) that IQ tests measure. Some IQ tests have no behavioral component at all; they just scan your brain and calculate your IQ.
For a solid primer on IQ, I recommend Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. It’s a consensus report of a task force of the American Psychological Association, so it’s as credible as anything.
Personally, I took an IQ test for toddlers when I was about 3 (my neighbor was a psych grad student who wanted to practice giving the test and my mom wanted a short break from having a toddler). I got a 168 (the limit), surprising my neighbor quite a bit. I had done about as much test prep as the typical toddler (none, unless Sesame Street counts). I haven’t taken an IQ test since then, but my life experience since then indicates that the test was qualitatively accurate.
Some people are naturally good at IQ tests and some people are naturally bad at them, and there’s not much a person can do to change their scores (aside from brain damage, of course). The people who are good at IQ tests have an advantage in any situation where absorbing, remembering, manipulating, and applying information is useful, which is a lot of situations. The people who aren’t have a disadvantage in those situations, and (with our current technology) we have no way to help them.
Thank you, I will look at the paper.
Enjoy. Keep in mind that it was written 25 years ago. The findings still hold up, but the paper’s forward-looking statements (“this might get better”) didn’t pan out.
I did an iq test years ago and got 126, then did one this morning and got 88, which bothered me. So I looked up the kinds of things that are going on in the tests as it’s been 30 years since I thought in any of these ways, then did one again 1hr later and got 112. For me personally, who never went to a school that focussed on exams or even did them, I have to first understand the framework they want answers in and I feel like I can now improve on that way of thinking and get a higher score so I’m not that impressed with iq tests as a measure of intelligence and in fact the more I think in that way the more I realise how dull it all is
Small quibble—general intelligence varies by age, and IQ tests are age-adjusted. But that’s a small clarification of your basic claim, which is supported by the data as I understand it.
Also, too, one of things g-factor is good for is the ability to learn, and especially the ability to apply previous experience to novel situations. So, the very ability of someone to get better at IQ tests (which when done well are not rote memorization exercises) indicates that there is some “there” there.
I agree that different peoples have different learning curve.
I wonder if perhaps a more appropriate test of “general intelligence” (+ motivation/grit) would be assessing how much you are able to improve in a task, given 1 month to practice.
Probably it is hard to make this work, because you could cheat in the first test doing it terribly on purpose.
Maybe if you have to pass a certain level to start, and then you have a bunch of different kinds of things to learn, but each person gets to specialize in what they do/like best so the test covers both breadth and depth of learning. It would probably take a few years, but the administrator could provide some sort of general certificate of intelligence+grit that potential employers and spouses could check without having to administer the test themselves?