I Took an IQ Test to Find Out What it Actually Measures

I just took an IQ test and I am SO happy... Thank God it came back negative!

When I was 8 years old my primary school teacher was convinced that I was gifted because I was always the first to finish a test and because I often seemed to get bored in class. One day I was taken out of class to take an IQ test for this reason. I have no memories of the test itself and no one ever told ma what the conclusion was. Around the age of 15 it also became clear that I had ADHD, despite this I was still holding up in school and I started taking medication. I am now 19 years old and a few months ago my parents told me that I had scored below average on this IQ test in primary school. The primary school psychologist (that had tested me) had told my parents that I would certainly not be able to go to university. My interest in science grew as I got older and when I asked my math teacher last year if I would be capable of studying engineering he said I definitely was. I have now completed my first year at the university. I am convinced that such IQ tests do not tell the full story at all. I had concentration problems and when I was 8 in primary school I had no idea what kind of test I was even taking. Don't let some number distract you from your goals!

The best way i heard IQ described is its like a combination of the acceleration of a car and its top speed. You can go a very distance from your starting point with a fast car that either accelerates quickly or has a high top speed but what really matters is the direction the car is going It doesnt matter how fast you are going if you are pointing the wrong direction.

Your point on child nutrition/education is so important. Ive seen so many altright people on the internet make racist comments based on IQ difference for populations when in fact it just shows that those populations are not having their basic needs met properly.

I had an IQ of 123 when I was a teenager. I call it the Henry Ford Intelligence Test, because it only measures you like a factory worker.

I took an IQ test once that had a time limit and there was a clock in the room. I don't like time pressure so I panicked and ended up with a not too bad but still very depressing score. They made me take another test and told me it wasn't timed, I did way better, was proud of myself. They actually lied to me, it was timed, but by not telling me I just got a way better score and still finished in time. So many factors as to why someone would get a bad or good result in a test.

Thanks for the info Derek!

I remember at age 3 I used to completely disassemble my older sisters full size bike, after seeing my dad use his tools, mom caught me and said “ you put that back together right this second”, made me feel as though it was wrong as opposed to encouraging my curiosity. Think we all have great potential if nurtured properly.

I was born in '81. I still remember in my kindergarten class there was a poster on the wall that read "It's not your IQ, it's your I WILL". That has stuck with me as demonstrably true my entire life.

It's actually really interesting that the IQ test has a baseline relative to the average of all scores, which means it measures your intelligence relative to others & not some fixed constant.

Very good. Had the sort of fairly balanced in depth look you'd get from BBC as opposed to those minimal info/high-repetition excuses we often see filling in segments between ads. And looks like the guy takes the bother to select advertizers who may actually have something to offer at whatever level. Nice that.

I was involved in a case study a couple of years ago and I was given an IQ test during that time. My score was 142. I've never fully understood what that meant. Your video shined alot of light on the subject. Thank you as always for your incredibly detailed and informative videos!!

Given how most schools are run, I feel like using IQ tests to indicate school success is a lot like saying "If you're good at taking tests, we can determine that you are good at taking tests."

Here's a (depressing) little fact about me. Some decade ago, when I was 12-13, I volunteered to take an IQ test at my school, and was generally considered a 'gifted kid' with outstanding grades in a lot of subjects, as well as an appetite for knowledge that shocked my teachers at the time - Books would be devoured in a matter of hours, I never studied and aced everything anyways because, as it turns out, what I did on my free time (devouring random wikipedia articles, essentially) was effectively studying. Then, my parents divorced, my grandparents and dogs died, and I went through a maaaajor depressive episode lasting, well, it's still going over a decade later, but the worst of it was age 14-19, where I was actively suicidal. For 'fun', I took a new IQ test when I was turning 20. My IQ when I was ~13? 144. My IQ after a major depressive episode a few years later? 106. My IQ today, another few years after that? 112. I don't want to blame depression or anything like that, but I do think it played a very large factor in killing my motivation for study - and notably, it killed a lot of my memory. I couldn't tell you a thing I did age 14-19 with any level of real accuracy other than scream at my divorced mother twice and moving house five times.

I took an IQ test (as an adult) as part of ADHD testing. I’ve always been very into school, I’m in a master’s program right now, absolutely love learning, reading, writing, research, etc. I love learning random histories, facts, words, concepts, etc. Yet I was taken aback by some of the questions! One was “who wrote Alice in Wonderland?” How the hell does that show my intelligence? It’s so clearly eurocentric, even US-centric (at least the version I took… so much for “objectivity”). There are so many brilliant people who might’ve never had an experience where they could name the author of a book, or even never focused their attention on random facts like that, who would get those questions wrong, thereby reducing their score (I admit I don’t know a lot about how the tests are scored and normalized). But, clearly, it goes to show these tests can be arbitrary and designed for certain populations. They don’t predict what people can really do and how they think.

This video contains sooo much more, interesting stats and scary history events. Thanks Veritasium.

Cecil: you're smarter than 98.8% of the population Derek: wow😒 Cecil: hopefully you're not disappointed Derek: *visibility disappointed*😕

Back in high school, I took several iq tests and would always score somewhere around the 132 range, so naturally I was walking around like the big brain on campus. Then I grew up and realized I'm dumb as hell, but just a really good test-taker.

Up through High School I always did poorly in school, gradewise. I graduated in the bottom 1/3 of my class. I probably had ADD. I certainly got in trouble a lot for goofing around. But as a teen I began to compose music and discovered that I was quite precocious. In college I majored in music and got mostly A in every music class except for instrument performance, where I usually got a C, but lower grades in all non-music subjects. I even majored in Medical Technology for 2 years. But, when I went to graduate school for music composition I got all As and 1 B. Then I took a third degree, this time in computer science and got mostly As, with 2 Bs. But I was the top student in most of my classes and two of the teachers, who were adjunct faculty, offered me jobs. One job was to manage either the network or the hard drives for the Census Bureau and the other was to write computer programs for scientists. I didn't like the pay since it was less than what I made teaching piano, so I didn't take either job. Finally I landed a computer programming job and eventually became the data and programming expert in a major government law-enforcement data base. I have since created over 200 music compositions and currently have more than 200 videos of them on YouTube. So, there is such a thing as a late-bloomer.

12:56 "I dont know..." The answer seems to be C 😎 There are always 3 lines of dots in each little drawing. The middle line of dots in each drawing is always 5 dots. The upper line (above those 5 dots) and lower line (below 5 dots) in each horizontal set of 3 boxes/drawings - are always: 1, 2 & 3 dots respectively. In the lowest set of three boxes there are already: - in the upper line: 3 & 2 dots = 1 dot in the missing one; - in the lower line: 3 & 1 dots = 2 dots in the missing one. Hence: the answer is C (1 dot over 5 dots over 2 dots)