The IQ Bowl

A few weeks ago, I wasted a hell of a lot of time conducted what just might be a ground-breaking experiment by taking three different online IQ tests. Here’s what I discovered: my IQ is either 127, 138, or 145. Hmm, that’s a bit of a variance, wouldn’t you say? What to do with these numbers? That’s the question. I could just take the average (and by that, the possible 145-IQ-me wants to make sure you realize I’m referring to the mean), which would put my IQ at approximately 136.666… (oooh, “in case of Rapture, my vehicle most definitely won’t be unmanned,” not with an IQ like that. Has anyone seen the bumper sticker that says this?). I could just get rid of the highest and the lowest scores and go with 138. Then again, I could just take the tactic of your average kindergartner and announce that my IQ is 145, having no problems, when asked, about saying, “because that’s what I want it to be.”

On the other hand, maybe the best tactic for figuring out what my IQ is might just be to take the numbers, throw them in a bowl with a whole bunch of other numbers, and pick one. Maybe I should even throw 60 in there, which is what Froshty had me convinced my IQ was, circa age 10. On many levels, my IQ should be 60.

When I considered many of the questions on these tests (all three tests are similar and all overlap), I couldn’t help my tendencies to skewer them. My natural question for what seemed like over half of them was, “Yes, but what if…?” For instance, quite a lot of them required the test-taker to have some familiarity with geography, which leads someone like me to think, “What if you attended school in The United States post-1960 when geography was all but eliminated from the curriculum?” You probably spent many years filling in blank maps of The United States, and that was the extent of your education in geography. If you don’t happen to be one of those kids who enjoyed reading encyclopedias and atlases for fun, or a crossword puzzle fiend, you very well might have no clue how to answer:

The Thames is to England as the _____________ is to Russia.

Chances are, you’re not going to be the least bit familiar with Russian rivers. You may not even know that the Thames is a river. Now, it’s a multiple-choice question, so you can choose the most Russian-sounding answer and increase your chances of getting it right. But what if it’s a trick question? What if it’s the most Mexican-sounding name, despite being in Russia? I just can’t help thinking that knowing the names of rivers in different countries can’t possibly be any indication of IQ. Wouldn’t a better question be: how can I find out the names of rivers in Russia if I don’t know what they are?

Here’s another one that requires knowledge that I wouldn’t exactly consider innate:

If you unscramble these letters YKTOO, you get the name of a:

a. planet

b. city

c. animal

d. all of the above

Does anyone else out there panic that oh yes, some new planet was recently discovered? What was it called? It wasn’t Kotyo, was it? What if there’s some endangered animal species in Antarctica called the Kotoy?

Then there’s this question (which I actually copied and pasted, because I’m so annoyed with it):

John received $0.76 in change from a purchase in a drugstore. If he received 8 coins, and five of the coins were the same denomination, how many quarters did he receive?

I look at a question like this one and automatically think, “ah, trick question.” This means I will spend at least twenty minutes on it (thus guaranteeing, if time is a factor in taking this test, which it was when I had to take such things as the S.A.T.s) that I will be at a disadvantage. My thoughts go something like this, “The question says five, but I bet that’s the trick. They want you to mess around with five coins of the same denomination, working with five and five only, but it might be six coins of that denomination, which would mean at least five, because the question doesn't say 'exactly five.' It could be seven or eight. Maybe all eight coins are the same denomination, and John didn’t get any quarters. They always want to trip you up by making you forget that zero could be the answer.” It’s actually a pretty straightforward question, but someone who doesn’t trust that can waste quite a lot of time with such a question. And let’s not even think about the fact that you have to be familiar with the American money system and its denominations to get this one correct.

Now, here’s what I’m thinking. I may get the river in Russia by the luck of the draw, but suppose you were giving this test to a Masai warrior, one of those cool Masai warriors who’s been hired to lead tourists back to their tents at night in Kenya, because he knows how to avoid wild beasts to keep from being attacked, and the tourists don’t. So, that Masai warrior may have no clue that YKTOO is a city called TOKYO. Maybe YKTOO is something completely different in his language. However, at that moment, whose IQ do you want: the Masai warrior’s or my 127-138-145-or-whatever IQ? I’ll go with Mr. Masai warrior and get him to keep my arm from being some lion’s midnight snack, because when it comes to this question:

To avoid a ravenous lion, one must ________

my IQ hovers somewhere around 15.

I guess that means my groundbreaking experiment yielded no significant results. I’m choosing to stick with the kindergartner’s response and will tell everyone my IQ is 145, because that’s what I want it to be. I’m a genius. Just don’t ask me to protect you from lions.