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IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is a number meant to measure people cognitive abilities (intelligence) in relation to their age group. An I.Q between 90 and 110 is considered average; and over 120 is believed to be superior.
Roughly 68% of the population has an IQ between 85 and 115. 95% of the population scores between 70 and 130. A score below 70 may indicate mental retardation, and a score above 130 may indicate intellectual giftedness. 1% of the population has an IQ of 136 or higher. However, an individual scoring 100 within one population can score above or below that value within another population, for example, the Japanese are supposed to have the highest average IQ in the world (115), but this 115 can only be an average of 100 within their own population (Japan).
The I.Q tests are intended to measure a person's ability to absorb and repeat mechanical intellectual tasks. And since the IQ is described as a "quotient", it usually represents the ratio between a person's "mental age" and actual chronological age. An IQ is considered to be inherited, which means that significant variation in IQ between adults can be attributed to genetic variation, without overlooking the role that the environment plays as well.
The history of the I.Q started with the Binet-Simon scale in 1905, with one single goal in mind, to serve as a guide to identify children in school who need special education or extra help to minimize their inferior level. Binet also reported that it’s not designed to measure “intelligence”. Later after many modifications on the original method of Binet-Simon, Stanford-Binet test was born, then refined testing methods were developed. Today intelligence tests are getting more popular among the population as well as in government departments. In 1989 the American Academy for the Advancement of Science listed the IQ test among the twenty most significant scientific discoveries of the twentieth century along with nuclear fission, DNA, and flight.
It’s very likely that many further refinements will be made to the actual testing methods, to include most of intelligence aspects, or at least get more accuracy.
To answer that we first need to answer one question, what is intelligence? You cannot measure something that you can hardly define. The problem is that the term intelligence has never been defined adequately and therefore nobody knows what an IQ test is supposed to measure. In spite of all this, today the future of thousands of children/ employees is determined by the results of this test, simply because it has its good share of accuracy. It doesn’t test all intelligence aspects, but it certainly tests many areas where it’s thought to be a feature of intelligence, such as epistemic intelligence, analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, facilitating intelligence, along with their intelligences associated with them such as the verbal, numeric, and spatial intelligence.
IQ Distribution within the Population
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The Bell Curve |
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Check out this Brain Games site |
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