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.
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.