The Real Indian IQ

[G.Subramaniam]

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On the other hand, in my own language (Oriya), the number 12 would be “bara”.
QUOTE
In Vietnamese, the number 12 is “möôøi hai” (möôøi=ten; hai =two). Hence Mr. Nguyen perceives the number 12 simply as “ten-two”. This obviates the need to translate back and forth during numerical tasks.

The same is true for South Indian languages too, at least for Telugu and Tamil so I presume others are similar.

13 = padhamoodu (padhi = 10, moodu = 3)
14 = padhnaalugu (padhi = 10, naalugu = 3)
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This is in context of the IQ tests being given in Orissa, MP, UP and Bihar
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Regarding Sanjay Das, I am not asking you to swallow everything

Just the facts he pointed out afflicting IQ scores in Orissa
Malnutrition, Illiteracy etc

Especially the fact that they are comparing Indian IQ scores in Orissa and Bihar vs Chinese scores in Beijing

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Regarding Outmarraige
I do know for a fact that Indian girls in India are super-picky, and I know of some NRI Indians giving up on the process and marrying a mail-order-bride from eastern europe

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[G.Subramaniam]

Regarding estimates of caste IQ

What we have is Estimates of NRI IQ in various countries and each of these is based on a certain blend of castes

The other aspect I was trying to point out is the whites are having a tough time to swallow that 'dark' south indians are doing much better in science fields

If it had been a case of north Indian outperformance, the whites would be claiming it is due to AIT

[Husky]

Dhu is right. As Rajesh_g revealed here on IF, The Bell Curve book was written by taking the supremacist teachings of ultraracist Lynn, friend of the equally notorious and pro-eugenics Roger Pearson.


What some assumptions on IQ do not take into account is deterioration of brain pathways - that are used to doing certain functions (such as mathematical computation) - through <i>disuse</i>.
Indian muslims need not have a low IQ at all. It is neglect of certain faculties due to islamism dissuading them from it. Blind faith has that effect, as it teaches one to avoid thinking (coming up with one's own hypotheses from observations and then testing these) and instead teaches them to just accept things on say-so. Lack of imagination, and ban on most artistic tendencies. Christianism to a lesser extent also has this effect. It had it in full force in the past when it used to teach that imagination was evil. See the effect of christianism in Rome and Greece. Joseph McCabe wrote how the Roman nobility were reduced within some centuries from being incredibly literate (artistically or academically so) to having to sign their names by drawing little cross-marks. Look what happened to the Greeks after christianism. Christianism was famous for teaching that maths was "evil" paganism. (True only in the sense that it was paganism and was certainly evil from christianism POV.)

It was contact with Greco-Roman civilisation (arts, sciences, literary works) and after that with Samskritam (grammar, sciences, literary works like Shakuntala, arts) that brought thinking back to deprived christo Europe. The medieval European period was famous for no independent thoughts. People really were pack animals that quietly accepted their fate dictated by the Church and demurely did all the serf-work required of them.

Indian communities that had lost out Hindu schooling thanks to the christoBritish destroying Hindu schools nationwide have also not had the chance to keep in touch with what their ancestors had studied. Neglect of skills (disuse) results in deterioration. Entire communities - you will find that many fall in line with those mentioned in this thread - have thus been deprived in recent centuries of practise in those functions that would hike up their IQ values.

Don't like having to say this, I'm being forced into it - but it's for a good cause so I guess it's worth it - but I can tell from my own mathematical (in)ability these days that those of my faculties that dealt with maths have simply deteriorated through utter disuse. In the field I'm working on, all but the most basic of maths is simply unnecessary and so I've had no cause to use them. I cannot do the kind of complex equations I learnt in the latter years of high school anymore. I would have to reacquaint myself with them now and do a bit of practising to get myself into that pattern of thinking again, before my abilities of earlier years return to any acceptable degree. I've even become slow in some basic maths that I used to take no time over. Simply lost that edge I once had from not keeping in touch. From British doco, brain pathways are maintained when one keeps reusing them (by practise). It's just like a sportsman needs to keep in training in order to achieve what he could before.
In my defense, I will say that it is not just me. Two of my friends have admitted to the same sometime in the last year, and I have noticed a similar effect of reduced mathematical ability in others - people I've known since math class in high school. I'm somewhat good at the particular field of work I do now, but the toll is that I'm not that good in other things I was reasonably good at before I specialised so. (Oddly enough, I'm still not that bad in some languages, even though I'm woefully out of touch, in that I can still read books/watch films in them. Or maybe merely watching and reading keeps me in practise.)

But I know that for a brief time I had to relearn some late high school level maths in order to solve a problem, and then I was able to regain my former abilities for the period that I kept in touch with it. (Since then, they've dwindled again. Sadly.) Surely, this is true of all people, various Hindu communities or people from the rest of the world.
Like they say, nothing keeps your brain young and avoids/keeps at bay the occurrence of deteriorating brain-diseases at an older age like keeping the brain in practise by, say, playing intelligence/memory games. Studies have advised this for people getting older.
But it is true in the more general case as well. What is lost through disuse (in our case, caused by christoBritish or islamic invasions) is something that can be regained. Centuries of disruption may take some time/some generations to completely rebuild though.
It also explains how come the amazing S American capacity for urban-civilisation building is not reflected in their present IQ. They have been reduced to outsiders living in the outskirts of their own country, they have been deprived of the knowledge that used to be passed down from generation-to-generation in their ancestors' times. Therefore, their present IQ is not indicative of what they could be capable of again if they retrain themselves.


<b>ADDED:</b>
My grandfather's free time was devoted entirely to teaching all the children in the village our languages, sciences and of course math. These kids included all the Hindu communities in the village (included kids of Harijan communities :missionary-gasp).
According to my dad, the kids were all very adept and everyone excelled when they went to college (my grandfather always kept track of his students' accomplishments and it was a matter of great pleasure for him to tell us that not a single one of his students had ever failed a subject - his Gurudakshina).
But what do my grandfather and dad know really. They were only dark S Indian Hindoos.

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.geocities.com/race_articles/l..._diff.html

Lynns IQ estimates of Indians

In India = 86
In South Africa = 85
In UK = 96

[G.Subramaniam]

China fears brain drain as its overseas students stay put

China suffers the worst brain drain in the world, according to a new study that found seven out of every 10 students who enrol in an overseas university never return to live in their homeland. Despite the booming economy and government incentives to return, an increasing number of the country’s brightest minds are relocating to wealthier nations, where they can usually benefit from higher living standards, brighter career opportunities and the freedom to have as many children as they wish.

[...] “I am slightly hesitant because China is developing very fast and by 2030, its GDP will probably surpass the USA. But I am concerned that I might not get a good job if I return. America may suit me more because they judge you according to your ability, whereas in China your background and connections are more important.”


http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,...39,00.html

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Essentially in the US, Indian elite are competing against chinese elite and winning big

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.vdare.com/rushton/070926_indians.htm

Indians Aren’t That Intelligent (On Average)
By Professor J. Philippe Rushton

In this article, I summarize the evidence for an average IQ of 85 in the group designated South Asian/North African. The people of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, the Gulf States, the Near East, Turkey and North Africa have an IQ just below the world average of 90. This is much higher than the IQ of 70 found for Black Africans, but it is also much lower than the IQ of 100 found for Europeans.

--

Back to the Indians.

Classical anthropology often placed South Asians and North Africans in the same taxonomic group as Europeans and designated them both as Caucasoids. But modern genetic studies, such as those by L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, show the South Asians/North Africans are a surprisingly distinct "genetic cluster". They can be distinguished from Europeans to their north as well as from sub-Saharan Africans to their south and the other Asian groups to their east.

The evidence that the average IQ of the North Africans/South Asians is as low as 85 is extensive. Lynn reviewed 37 IQ studies from 16 countries such as India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq and found an IQ range of from 77 to 96 with a median of 84. He reviewed 13 studies of immigrants from those countries in the UK and Australia and found a median IQ of 89. He reviewed 18 further studies of South Asians and North Africans in Continental Europe and found a median IQ of 84. He reviewed 9 studies of South Asians in Africa, Fiji, Malaysia, and Mauritius and found a median IQ of 88. Finally, Lynn reviewed 13 studies of select South Asian and North African high school and university students and found a median IQ of 92, eight points higher than that of general population samples.

Lynn’s finding of an average South Asian IQ of 85 has been corroborated by Jan te Nijenhuis and colleagues in Holland, who analyzed thousands of respondents including nationally representative samples. They found an average IQ of 81 for first generation Turks and Moroccans living in the Netherlands. They found an IQ of 88 for the second generation, who spoke Dutch and had been educated in the Dutch school system. They published their results in the 2004 European Journal of Personality.

Another finding of a low South Asian IQ came from a review of studies on the Gypsies (or Roma as they are now often called). This South Asian population migrated to southeastern Europe from northwest India between the 9th and 14th centuries and currently number between 4 and 10 million. Their average IQ in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, based on a review of 10 studies by Petr Bakalar, is below 80. His review was published in the 2004 Mankind Quarterly.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-G.Subramaniam+May 11 2008, 07:29 AM-->QUOTE(G.Subramaniam @ May 11 2008, 07:29 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.vdare.com/rushton/070926_indians.htm

Indians Aren’t That Intelligent (On Average)
By Professor J. Philippe Rushton

Another finding of a low South Asian IQ came from a review of studies on the Gypsies (or Roma as they are now often called). This South Asian population migrated to southeastern Europe from northwest India between the 9th and 14th centuries and currently number between 4 and 10 million. Their average IQ in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, based on a review of 10 studies by Petr Bakalar, is below 80. His review was published in the 2004 <b>Mankind Quarterly</b>.
[right][snapback]81521[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Mankind Quarterly? That's known for its ultraracism. Stefan Arvidsson in his Aryan Idols writing about Roger Pearson:
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...024&#entry60024
Post 113 by Rajesh_G:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Pearson</b> was also chairman of the American division of the World Anti-Communist League and lobbied in Washington for more funds for defense, the Contras, and the UNITA guerillas. Together with Polome, one of the United States' leading researchers in the area of Germanic religion, he has also published the academic, <b>racist journal the Mankind Quarterly</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Read also posts 117 to 119 for more on Roger Pearson and Lynn and The Bell Curve, such as:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lynn has received at least $325,000 from the Pioneer Fund (Rolling Stone, 10/20/94). He frequently publishes in <b>eugenicist journals like Mankind Quarterly</b>--published by Roger Pearson and co-edited by Lynn himself--and Personality and Individual Differences, edited by Pioneer grantee Hans Eysenck. Among Lynn's writings cited in <b>The Bell Curve</b> are "The Intelligence of the Mongoloids" and "Positive Correlations Between Head Size and IQ."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So who believes what Mankind Quarterly says, or believes the likes of "Professor J. Philippe Rushton" (who wrote "Indians Aren’t That Intelligent") who cite Mankind Quarterly as an authoritative and impartial source? In fact endorsement of such sources gives Phillippe Rushton away as a racist himself. Racist means bigot means non-partial means non-scientific brain. So much for his title of Professor.

[Bharatvarsh]

The above article by Rushton I read a while ago and shows up the kind of charlatan he is, only the most intellectually challenged will group disparate populations like North Africans and Indians into one big homogenous group. Note that he says:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lynn’s finding of an average South Asian IQ of 85 has been corroborated by Jan te Nijenhuis and colleagues in Holland, who analyzed thousands of respondents including nationally representative samples. They found an average IQ of 81 for first generation Turks and Moroccans living in the Netherlands. They found an IQ of 88 for the second generation, who spoke Dutch and had been educated in the Dutch school system. They published their results in the 2004 European Journal of Personality.

http://www.vdare.com/rushton/070926_indians.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since when did Turks and Moroccans become "South Asians"?

How come they didn't test the Surinamese Indians who are substantial in Netherlands but use results from North Africans and extrapolate them to Indians.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+May 11 2008, 07:38 AM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ May 11 2008, 07:38 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Since when did Turks and Moroccans become "South Asians"?

How come they didn't test the Surinamese Indians who are substantial in Netherlands but use results from North Africans and extrapolate them to Indians.
[right][snapback]81523[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Bharatavarsha, why is your reasonable sensible self expecting reason and sense from them? They belong in the category of people who did some DNA tests on occurrence of blue eyes with samples from Europe to Turkey and Jordan and found that all <i>with possibly one exception</i> had a common ancestor from the Black Sea and then concluded that "therefore all blue eyes all over the world" (including Persia, Afghanistan and India which they never even bothered testing) must have therefore come from the same Black Sea ancestor. And that's in spite of that one question-mark they themselves had discovered in their own insufficient sample.

It is only natural that you fail to understand their logic and their pretences to scientific methodology.

[G.Subramaniam]

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2006/09/more-...chard-lynn.html

Even if we wanted the data, can we rely on Lynn to have given an accurate account of them? I do not pretend to have read the originals of more than a handful of the papers and books cited by Lynn, but it just so happens that I wrote two of them myself, and Lynn has simply got their data wrong. Table 6.2 gives the results of 13 estimates of the IQ scores of south Asians in Britain and Australia. The median score is said to be 89, and similar for Indians and Pakistanis (as is to be expected since they are the same racial group). In fact, three British studies have given the same IQ tests to Indian and Pakistani children, and in all three, Indian children have outscored the Pakistanis by 4–6 IQ points. Mackintosh and Mascie-Taylor (1986) reported IQ scores of 97 and 93 for 10-year-old children of Indian and Pakistani origin respectively, but Lynn incorrectly attributes both scores to Pakistanis, one said to be for children resident in Britain more than 4 years, the other for more recent immigrants. West, Mascie-Taylor, and Mackintosh (1992) reported IQ scores of 91 and 85 for Indian and Pakistani children, but in Lynn's table these have mysteriously turned into scores of 87 and 88. The errors may not be particularly important, and I do not know how typical they are. But they do not increase my confidence in Lynn's scholarship.

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.arthurhu.com/99/09/indiq.txt

1 >>LYNN RATES INDIAN IQ AS 91
\doc\web\99\09\indiq.txt


As to data on intelligence, Lynn in his 1997 discussion merely repeat his
1991 table, which gives an estimated IQ of 91 for South Asian Caucasoids.
I do not attach too much weight to the success of Indians in the US (which
is outstanding), since in the UK they do not do particularly well. The US
Indian population appears to be highly selected by our immigration laws.
In the UK, many more ordinary Indians came over.

[G.Subramaniam]

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog...nese_iq_puzzle/

You cannot generalize Indian IQ as it varies tremendously amongst various sub population. Rushton and others disregard the high IQ results by Indian in the US (Hindus have the highest SAT scores as a subgroup) by claiming that this is because of selective immigration, and then take other results of lower IQ by indian immigrants as gospel, which is also a selective group.

There are two types of immigrant from India. Initially Highly skilled Indians emmigrated to the US. This was the initial wave. Then their spouses and other relatives also emmigrated. This subset was not as intellectually gifted. Then there are the economic immigrants. These are typically people who are not doing too well in India. Part of the reason is that they could not compete in India. This is the labor class, and probably has low IQ. This is what is found in Fiji, Vancouver, Gulf, and Carribean. You cannot make generalization by just looking at one group.

Britain probably has the most representative sample of immigrants. It has the doctors and engineers, along with the lower economic class people. IQ tests have shown that Indians in Britain have an IQ of 97, despite having a verbal disadvantage of not speaking English in majority of homes. Another study has indicated that as a group, Hindus do better than white english school children.

Most of the population in India is rural, and their brain does not get the stimulation that is needed to do well on these IQ tests. However if you question them in their area of expertise, they have good grasp of nuances in agriculture engineering that is needed to be a succesful farmer, rural businessmen, street vendor etc. There is also a subsection of population that is regressive and dumb, and they tend to belong to the tribal and/or lower caste population.

I would say that there is a population of 300 million in India with IQ comparable with that of white america. This essentially represents the so called middle class in India . Then there is another 700 million with an average IQ of about 92 (adjusting for what can be termed as Flynn effect). I would estimate that the average IQ of India is around 94…

Posted by Vic on Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 02:48 PM | #

--

I am a professor , I teach math at the university level. I wonder how many of the people on this forum interact in any setting that enables observation of any intelligent traits across the genetic divide. As an educator I do this daily and for as long as I have been running a classroom I have never had an Indian student fail my class. I can however count about a dozen east Asians and score fulls of Caucasians who did not make the grade. On the contrary I have had Indian kids top my class every other year. Also, my general observation has been that Indian students grasp concepts rather quickly and have much better problem solving skills. I for one cannot believe that the Indian IQ is lower than even the American mean. The guys who did the survey got something horribly wrong, these Indians are smart, very smart.
Gordon
Austin, TX

Posted by Gordon on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 10:23 AM | #

[G.Subramaniam]

Ashraf muslim mean IQ in Aligarh = 99

This must be a very high ranking Ashraf group to get IQ of 99

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2005/11/yve...bout-india.html


Inbreeding depression and intelligence quotient among north Indian children.

Badaruddoza, Afzal M.

Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, India.

This study presents the assessment of inbreeding depression on the intelligence quotient among north Indian Muslim Children of school age. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R)-74 was given to the children in both groups (50 each non-inbred and inbred of the first-cousin status), aged 6 to 11 years and from the same socio-economic status. The change of the mean follows genetic theory; however, the nature of the change in variance seems to be somewhat different.

PIP: The level of inbreeding depression on the intelligence quotient (IQ) of North Indian Muslim schoolchildren was assessed in a survey conducted in Aligarh. The 50 inbred children were products of marriages between first cousins; their mean age was 7.7 years (range, 6-11 years). A significant (p 0.001) negative association was found between inbreeding and score on the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-C). In addition, the weighted mean IQ of inbred children )88.4 + or - 1.37) differed significant (p 0.001) from that recorded among 50 noninbred controls of similar age and socioeconomic status (99.6 + or - 2.0).

[G.Subramaniam]

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm

Prodigy. Interesting idea. Suppose, in order to contribute significantly to a nation's productivity, a sophisticated economy demands of its work force some minimum cognitive ability, say IQ0. We might call the population fraction with IQ > IQ0 a nation's smart fraction. A model can be constructed based on the simple assumption that per capita GDP depends on the size of the smart fraction. In the simplest case, per capita GDP would be proportional to the smart fraction. That is, writing G for per capita GDP, and f for smart fraction, such a model would assert that:



Thus, for a technologically sophisticated society, SFT asserts that a nation's per capita GDP is determined by the population fraction with IQ greater than or equal to some threshold IQ. Consistent with the data of Lynn and Vanhanen, that threshold IQ is 108, a bit less than the minimum required for what used to be a bachelor's degree

[Husky]

I was looking for the CITO test (something I had to take when I was a kid), which is used in the Netherlands.

What I found also gives some useful information on the history of the IQ test which I think pretty interesting. Do read the entire thing: the purpose for why the French person invented diagnostic tests versus the purpose of what the Americans changed it to and used it for.


http://nieuws-uitgelicht.infonu.nl/educati...gentietest.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>History</b>
A description of the history of intelligence research usually starts at the beginning of the 20th century with the work of the Frenchman A. Binet. Binet was primarily interested in a diagnostic function of the intelligence test. He tried to identify in a systematic way the individual differences in the intelligence of children, whose identification was of practical importance for education, with as <b>goal to facilitate increase in the intellectual capabilities of these weaker children through means of special instruction.</b>

Binet and Simon developed in 1905 the first intelligence test to go over which students did not appear capable of going through regular education successfully. For this it was essential to predict the school-success of the children.

Binet selected tasks for his test-suite that correlated highest with school-performance/achievement. In this manner, the first intelligence measuring instrument came into being. The test had a strong verbal character and called on aspects such as logical reasoning and memory.

The work of Binet and Simon quickly made its way into America. This resulted in an American version of hte test-series: the Stanford-Binet test, that is still used (in revised form) in individual psychological research.

However, with the American researchers, the primary interest for the use of the Stanford-Binet sprung forth from the possibility of <b>developing a scale with which a population can be hierarchically ordered on the basis of intelligence.</b> Due to this, the function of the usage of the test shifted rather quickly from diagnostic usage with an eye on improving the intellectual performance to a more selective usage based on the predictable capacity of a test.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->So, as usual it was the Americans who used it for hierarchical purposes (rather like how America was the one to come up with a eugenics program which the nazis from Germany studied and built on). American casteism can be measured.


Anyways, about the CITO in NL: We were long ago told that the CITO was no intelligence test, although http://www.testresearch.nl/zerk/givosz.html says there's a reasonable correlation between the two of about 0.79 (N=1056).

http://nieuws-uitgelicht.infonu.nl/educati...gentietest.html <b>The CITO test is no intelligence test</b> says - in the section <i>Predicting School Performance</i> that:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Predicting School Performance</b>
[...]
School-progress tests such as the CITO test often turn out to be better predictors than intelligence tests. This is not so surprising considering the small amount of "school-related material" that intelligence tests consist of.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The CITO test is more useful for countries that are focused on education, rather than intending to work on eugenics programmes or bringing forth bigoted supremacist people and conferring the title of professor on them. (Amerikkka)


As I recall:
CITO is a test taken in the final year of primary, when kids are aged between 11-12. There is no studying for the test, it won't help. It merely measures what sort of subsequent education would be best suited to your learning style.
Based on your score, you will be allowed into one of the following High School types:
- GTS: high school for education on preparing for professions in mechanics, advertising, hair dressing
- MAVO: middle general continuing/secondary education.
- HAVO: higher general continuing/secondary education.
- VWO: continuing/secondary scientific education. Consists of two streams - Gymnasium (where you learn Latin and Greek) and Atheneum (where you learn the same minus Latin and Greek).

MAVO, HAVO and VWO were often offered in the same high school. The first year choices were a bridge: MAVO/HAVO or HAVO/VWO. In the second year you'd have to finalise - based on how difficult you found it and what the teachers thought was best for you - what stream you would definitely commit yourself to.

The teaching material is usual the same from MAVO to VWO, except students in MAVO finish school 2 years earlier and HAVO 1 year earlier than VWO which is high school for 6 years. In the last 1 or 2 years, Atheneum and Gymnasium merge and there is no more Latin, Greek classes.
Also, MAVO (and at times HAVO) was graded differently for the same tests. In some subjects, certain topics are not covered or not covered in as much depth in MAVO (and can't remember if the same goes for HAVO).

Finally, once you finish high school, your tertiary education depends on your high school education. If you did:
- GTS then you go to LBO: Lower Professional Education.
- MAVO then you go to MBO: Middle Professional Education.
- HAVO then you go to HBO: Higher Professional Education. Polytech.
- VWO then you can go on to University.

I've not heard of anyone who did HAVO and got into university, but I think in theory it should be possible but may be dependent on very good grades in HAVO. VWO students could get into university or choose to do HBO (Polytech). Most chose Polytech. In the Netherlands kids looked down on university in high school with most of them swearing that would be the last thing they'd ever do (using very colourful expressions). There was a cute insult they had for people: 'Why don't you just go to university'.

Anyways, note how that CITO test at age 11 (in final year of primary) determines whether you will be allowed into university or not in the future. In fact, it decides your future profession by presenting you with a subset of all profession options based on your score. CITO determines your high school stream and your tertiary education and your profession.

A sample question that I remember: "What is heavier, 1kg of iron or 1kg of feathers?" <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Kids afterwards protested that it was a trick question. But apparently it was meant to test reading-and-understanding. Sometimes, being a slow reader helps. I don't know how I answered that, but going by my current luck, my usual slowness never kicks in at the right time.

<b>ADDED:</b>
I've never taken an IQ test (not looking forward to getting a grade summarily expressing incompetence, unless of course I would get <i>paid</i> for taking yet another test..., in which case my pride will willingly take a backseat to economic necessity/greed/what you will.) But insofar as I understand, there is theoretically no upper limit to your score because both time taken and number of Qs correctly answered contribute to your IQ score. Is that right?
IIRC, I think CITO did have a toplevel mark: it was just based on the number of questions you answered correctly. That is, the full-marks scenario. I don't know anyone who'd ever got that, but it <i>was</i> conceptually possible. (The test contained no open questions, everything was multi-choice, by the way.)
But this is all based on what I remember, it was all so long ago, so don't hold me to it.

Funny thing I remember. The class studying their final VWO year would have oral exams next to the written ones. I remember that during two of my years in early Dutch high school, two non-Dutch and non-European/non-western persons scored the highest in Dutch of all students. <i>Dutch.</i> I was so proud of them, though I'd never even met them. It's a very good, logical and simple language. And very beautiful too. Lang leve 't Nederlands! Vive la Neerlandaise! (Hmmm, forget whether it was <i>f</i> or <i>m</i>... never mind.) Long live Dutch!

[Bharatvarsh]

The person who developed the first IQ test was Alfred Binet a Frenchman in early 1900s, he wanted it to help identify kids who needed special education in the then overcrowded French classrooms. It was brought to US by Lewis Terman. In US new tests were developed, and soon some of them were used as support for eugenics programs while it lasted. Since then the tests have been improved because they tried to tease out the blatant cultural bias evident in earlier tests and deemphasize acquired knowledge.

By the way there are phenomena which still remain unexplained and challenge our common ideas of intelligence. I am talking about autistic savants (a small proportion of the overall autistic population) who have extraordinary memory abilities but in real life are classified as "mentally retarded" and often cannot function on their own, some of these people have very good musical abilities or talent with calenders (for example if you ask them what day of the week June 9 1979 was, they can answer). We don't have a satisfying explanation for how they do this, this was shown in the Hollywood movie Rainman starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (if anyone is more interested in "strange" phenomena like these check out the online videos on youtube of Vilayanur Ramachandran and his other works).

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+May 11 2008, 06:12 PM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ May 11 2008, 06:12 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->In US new tests were developed, and soon some of them were used as support for eugenics programs while it lasted. Since then the tests have been improved because they tried to tease out the blatant cultural bias evident in earlier tests and deemphasize acquired knowledge.[right][snapback]81538[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I didn't know this. But it's oh-so predictable. Why is it that everything they touch turns to grime/crime?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am talking about autistic savants (a small proportion of the overall autistic population) who have extraordinary memory abilities but in real life are classified as "mentally retarded" and often cannot function on their own, some of these people have very good musical abilities or talent with calenders (for example if you ask them what day of the week June 9 1979 was, they can answer).<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The played a multi-episode documentary about Savants here. Very interesting. One of the Savants shown was an African-American who could produce in a largescale drawing a replica of the panoramic view of a city he'd been shown from helicopter, accurate to the minutest details (in terms of number of windows of a tiny house in a side-alley, and angles of the shapes of buildings). Another one knew to play on piano all the songs his mother had had on records and which he'd heard when he was very young, even though he had no training in music or the piano. Another one was a mathematical genius who became very frightened of numbers when he was a wee thing. But one day the numbers worked themselves out in his head with the help of music and since then he's been composing (mainly jazz) music: mathematically perfect compositions as he says. He also made some suggestions for correcting Beethoven's (or was it Mozart's) works to make them mathematically perfect.

The documentary proposed that maybe the difference between them and us was that they perceived things more objectively and less subjectively than we did. That is, that we overlooked certain things in order to summarise what we saw and make out of it what appeared important to us, whereas they took the whole thing in exactly as it was. Their method of problem solving has the advantage of not losing sight of a single element of the problem: elements that we may have ignored under the assumption that it was insignificant. On the other hand, it may be that the common situation has the advantage that we are able to extract more general patterns (of possible significance). Imagine combining the two in a police investigation.

Bharatavarsha, I don't know if you would find it interesting, since you obviously already know so much about this, but in case you missed this documentary I think it may really be named after "Savants". I certainly thought it was interesting.

And there was a bit in the program on an Australian Savant who was a lecturer or perhaps a professor at a university. He proposed that by shocking some part of the brain, we could temporarily turn that part off and start perceiving the world more like Savants do. They conducted some tests along this line on the program. Quite an out-there idea.
As pleasant as shock therapy sounds and all, at this stage, I'm not yet that desperate to become more intelligent than whatever I am, so I think I might pass on it...

[G.Subramaniam]

The ravens matrices IQ test

This is the test that Lynn uses worldwide

This test is very pictogramatic and is somewhat easier for people who read in pictograms a-la oriental scripts

[Bharatvarsh]

Husky will try to find that documentary, meanwhile here is a documentary on the most famous Savant, Kim Peek (the inspiration for Rainman):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2T45r5G3kA

Check out the IQ test at the beginning of the 2nd part, his scores fluctuate wildly depending on the task.

[G.Subramaniam]

Various estimates of Ashkenazi IQ
--

Based on SAT scores in USA = 120

other tests, 115 .113, 110, 108, 107