General / Off-Topic A British young, of 12 years, stronger than Einstein and Hawking in an IQ test

Alien

Alien
Mensa need to redo the test, I find it hard to believe a) she got 162 after I read this in the article "Lydia, who has read all seven of the Harry Potter book series three times" and b) if 162 is the highest score, which is if someone gets every answer correct, then the test needs re-writing.

Before anyone flames me re: Harry Potter, I am not being 100% serious here, but surely referencing Harry Potter is not a measure of how intelligent someone is?

Fun Fact: I took the Mensa test and scored 142, but didn't want to pay their ridiculous prices for joining Mensa. I'm supposedly more intelligent than Bill Gates ... so that doesn't say a lot about Mensa's test. :p
 

xondk

X
Patrick_68000 said:
the young girl has obtained a score of 162, the highest score possible --- http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/13641418.Lydia_beats_world_s_top_geniuses_on_test/
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Yeah, this doesn't really say much unfortunately, they 'claim' she has a high intelligence, and by all means she can be very intelligent, but she isn't going to sit down and solve things that Einstein or Hawking can't solve simply because of that, if you give her tasks like that she won't be able to figure it out, because she doesn't understand those kinds of math yet, can she learn them and be good at them sure.

But yeah also as Alien mentions Harry Potter books or such aren't really good for measuring anything.

Edit: does that mean she can't grow up to solve said problems, of course not, but saying she has a higher IQ then them in this point in life is misleading.
 
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Surfinjo

Surfinjo
When I first came to this country I was given an IQ test. Among the questions was: Who was the Queen's Father? and How many Florin's in a Pound? There were also questions about Chains, Stones and practical problems related to the size of a cricket crease.
 

Soliluna

Soliluna
Monkeys and typewriters. A completely irrelevant test that shows nothing but an aptitude for logical processing and the fluidity of that processing. Have enough people with common sense sit down to run the test you will likely see quite a lot of them get top or close to top marks. If you trained those people before hand by giving them questions that stimulated the relevant cognitive functions so that they became fluid you could get them all scoring near that amount.

Unimpressed, but glad that it makes her and her family happy.
 

Cmdr Deadspot

C
Soliluna said:
Monkeys and typewriters. A completely irrelevant test that shows nothing but an aptitude for logical processing and the fluidity of that processing. Have enough people with common sense sit down to run the test you will likely see quite a lot of them get top or close to top marks. If you trained those people before hand by giving them questions that stimulated the relevant cognitive functions so that they became fluid you could get them all scoring near that amount.

Unimpressed, but glad that it makes her and her family happy.
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I agree with this. An IQ test simply tests one's ability to process information, and like any test, can be studied. To put it another way, it tests a person's aptitude for intelligence, but that actual intelligence comes from long years of study and practical application.
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Alien said:
Mensa need to redo the test, I find it hard to believe a) she got 162 after I read this in the article "Lydia, who has read all seven of the Harry Potter book series three times" and b) if 162 is the highest score, which is if someone gets every answer correct, then the test needs re-writing.

Before anyone flames me re: Harry Potter, I am not being 100% serious here, but surely referencing Harry Potter is not a measure of how intelligent someone is?

Fun Fact: I took the Mensa test and scored 142, but didn't want to pay their ridiculous prices for joining Mensa. I'm supposedly more intelligent than Bill Gates ... so that doesn't say a lot about Mensa's test. :p
Click to expand...

Mensa tests don't work quite like that. ie higher the score, the better the IQ. It's modified by age, so a 10 year old who gets less points than an 18 year old can have a higher IQ.
 

titan_uk

titan_uk
I too find this story somewhat meaningless. The exam she took was the Cattrall IIIB which is mostly verbal reasoning, now if she had taken 4 different ones in a controlled environment and still achieved a 99.8 percentile, that would be something. However, as the test is modified for age I find it totally pointless testing someone this young apart for the fun factor but it also sheds light on the flaws of the testing.

By the way the top score has been done many times before, it's important to note that these top scores are mainly by youngsters. 12 and a half isn't anything special..Neither is 10 and a half:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...-score-and-says-I-could-have-done-better.html
 
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