Saturday, December 03, 2005
Proof I'm getting dumber with age
Here's hoping age is the start of wisdom, because I've dropped eight IQ points since I was a kid. At least according to an online I.Q. test I took last night.I guess I shouldn't have been drinking before I took it.
After spewing 50 questions at me, asking me to register (which I faked) and to sign up for a more in-depth analysis (NO THANKS!), I finally got to a page that read, "Congratulations, Your IQ score is 131."
Now I know for a fact that alcohol kills brain cells. I once tested at 139 when I was in middle school. Both that score and the one I just took are considered "very superior."
However, I remember being one point shy of the strict cutoff for taking humanities classes - advance courses meant for "genius" students way back in the '70s - so I got placed in with the regular kids.
It sparked my belief that K-12 education in the U.S. is just a series of trial-and-error, experimental, popular fads. My theory is that these fads are based solely on some graduate student's doctoral thesis and the desperate need of district administrators to look busy and publicly appear as if they're improving their schools, thus justifying their inflated salaries.
I've long maintained IQ tests don't measure desire, motivation or tenacity. If given a chance, and enough time, I can pretty much do any work put in front of me. I suspect that's true for a lot of us.
Needlesstosay, I learned about disillusionment and existentialism at a pretty impressionable age. If it hadn't been for writing, I probably would have ended up in the same drug rehab program most of my friends attended.
Instead, the program's director offered me a job while I was doing a feature story about the place, saying, "You relate so well with these kids." I didn't have the heart to tell him why, nor do I want to venture a guess at his IQ.
So it wasn't much of a surprise that the IQ test I took last night also found that my "intellectual type is Word Warrior. This means you have exceptional verbal skills. You can easily make sense of complex issues and take an unusually creative approach to solving problems. Your strengths also make you a visionary. Even without trying you're able to come up with lots of new and creative ideas."
Apparently not today. Look what I've written after a hangover.
Finally, I'll leave you with this thought: If mensa members are so smart, why is their Web site so dull?
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The Daily Rant by Dave Ralis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
The Daily Rant by Dave Ralis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
