I’m pretty sure IQ tests don’t ask questions like that. They’re supposed to measure intelligence, not knowledge (at least in principle¹), and it’s obvious that even a very smart person couldn’t possibly figure out whether rattlesnakes are dangerous while taking the test, short of knowing that beforehand.
Well, many of them do require knowledge of the English alphabet and its order, a few require a reasonable knowledge of English, and I think even with Raven’s Progressive Matrices, some explicit knowledge of discrete maths concepts such as exclusive OR and cyclical permutations is very useful.
I took an IQ test that had a bunch of “what’s wrong with this picture” items in one section. I don’t remember any of the questions but the last one—the last one required me to know that there wasn’t any air on the moon.
There is a theory about how IQ tests should be designed. Most of the complaints in this discussion about why some IQ tests are not fair, are already known, and probably have been known for decades.
Of course it does not prevent people from ignoring those suggestions and making their own mistaken “IQ tests” anyway (especially if there is money and status to gain by doing so). Just like any amount of medical research cannot prevent people from making and selling homeopathics.
Well, a sufficiently intelligent person could guess that the moon is likely too small to have strong enough grav[realizes that Alicorn is looking at him in a weird way]… Just kidding. :-)
I’m pretty sure IQ tests don’t ask questions like that. They’re supposed to measure intelligence, not knowledge (at least in principle¹), and it’s obvious that even a very smart person couldn’t possibly figure out whether rattlesnakes are dangerous while taking the test, short of knowing that beforehand.
Well, many of them do require knowledge of the English alphabet and its order, a few require a reasonable knowledge of English, and I think even with Raven’s Progressive Matrices, some explicit knowledge of discrete maths concepts such as exclusive OR and cyclical permutations is very useful.
I took an IQ test that had a bunch of “what’s wrong with this picture” items in one section. I don’t remember any of the questions but the last one—the last one required me to know that there wasn’t any air on the moon.
That was obviously a bad test.
There is a theory about how IQ tests should be designed. Most of the complaints in this discussion about why some IQ tests are not fair, are already known, and probably have been known for decades.
Of course it does not prevent people from ignoring those suggestions and making their own mistaken “IQ tests” anyway (especially if there is money and status to gain by doing so). Just like any amount of medical research cannot prevent people from making and selling homeopathics.
Well, a sufficiently intelligent person could guess that the moon is likely too small to have strong enough grav[realizes that Alicorn is looking at him in a weird way]… Just kidding. :-)
Okay, my examples sucked, but the general principle that one’s abilities with reading and English will make a big difference on a written and/or English IQ test still holds. I made that point a lot better in a different comment. http://lesswrong.com/lw/kk/why_are_individual_iq_differences_ok/776g