Excellent point. I was given a standardized IQ test, administered by a psychologist or psychiatrist by my school district, when I was 12 years old -- having "difficulties" at school, you see. And so they did administer IQ tests on me at thir own expense. (Why someone would choose to unergo this of their own volition is beyond me.)
As I understand it, that's exactly the reason they're given: for & to adolescent kids, to see how well they will probably adapt to structured learning environments. They are not told what the resulting IQ scores are, IIRC. If you file special forms, etc., once you're 18, you can learn from the administering doctor what it finally was, 6 years ago.
I find out what my IQ was at age 12 after filing a lot of medical reports due to a medical condition, and this only when I was in my 20s. Needless to say, my IQ was not "250" like I jested in a previous post. (Anything above 140 is virtually impossible, from what I understand.) The IQ score is not some cock-size type thing that follows you your whole life.
Even Stephen Jay Gould, in The Mismeasurement of Man (IQ scores do stem from controversies over eugenics, etc., in the 1920s) said that a unipolar scale, much less represented by a single NUMBER, is an absolutely poor and impoverished means to show how "smart" one is. He claimed it wasn't so cut and dried but that it also varies upon cultural considerations of what "intelligence" is, etc. Also, standardized IQ tests change every few years to correct for earlier mistakes. I.e. Your "IQ" in 1970 might not be the same in 1985; the tests change.
There are a lot of bogus and sham "IQ tests" at bookstores and the like. The real deal is a complicated and expensive affair. And why would you even want to undertake it all voluntarily, to begin with? An ego boost? I don't know, don't care. It means nothing to me now. Usually IQ tests are given to kids under duress; adults don't pay hundred of dollars to do them.
-B.
bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
> why do people even know their IQ scores anyway?