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!
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!