The greatest danger in taking an IQ test is that you score below your potential through poor test management and spend the rest of your life undervaluing your own abilities. I’ll review a couple of the most common errors in test management and suggest remedies.
The most common reason for an inaccurate measure of IQ is poor time management. Your IQ score is based on the number of correct answers you obtain during a remarkably brief time period. There are enough test items to ensure that you won’t finish them all, so you need to move rather quickly. Take enough time to read the item and make sure you understand what is being asked, then select what you believe to be the correct answer and move on. Looking at all the suggested answers in an item and ruminating about each one will cost you valuable time. It won’t matter if some of your answers are incorrect.
Most IQ tests include items of a format known as Raven’s Progressive Matrices such as the one below that asks you to select from the 8 distractors, the one that completes the pattern.
In such an item, you are expected to look for a pattern in the first two columns and then choose the missing element that completes the pattern. If you haven’t seen this type of item before, you may waste valuable time determining what is asked. Sometimes the patterns run across columns, and sometimes they run across columns and down through the rows. To prepare for your IQ test, purchase a book of such items or download sample items of this type and practice solving them. If you practice a few of these, you will be able to develop a strategy for discerning the patterns.
The vocabulary sections of the IQ tests usually tap into the meanings of various words and their connections. To make these tests relatively “culture free”, the test developers have attempted to ask about the relationships between the meanings of common words. People who read a great deal have an advantage in this area, so it’s difficult to prepare for the “meanings” except to know that you may be asked which of several words have similar meaning and which have opposite meaning.
The IQ tests are designed to be relatively “knowledge-free” so you won’t need any outside knowledge or authorities to help you. It’s all you. Of course, it’s intimidating to take any tests that purport to measure your intellectual, athletic or creative skills, but remember that although IQ tests give us an excellent measure of intelligence for most people, they can be inaccurate in individual cases. Noble laureate Richard Feynman received an IQ score of only 125 when he was in school. Furthermore, intellectual potential is one thing, but what you do with your intelligence is much more important. Famous geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane stressed the importance of environment in enabling a person to reach their intellectual potential, stating:
We cannot in general say that A has a greater innate ability than B. A might do better in environment X, and B in environment Y. Had I been born in a Glasgow slum I should very probably have become a chronic drunkard, and if so, I might by now be a good deal less intelligent than many men of a stabler temperament but less possibilities of intellectual achievement in a favourable environment. If this is so it is clearly misleading to speak of the inheritance of intellectual ability. This does not mean that we must give up the analysis of its determination in despair. It means that the task will be harder than many people believe.
You can have a rich, productive life no matter what score you receive on an IQ test if you move forward toward your goals with confidence, intensity and passion.
