Ah what the hell. I took the test, figuring you'd keep harping on it. I couldn't come with an answer for the 'insatiable' question so got 29. Another of the other questions should have 'Maybe' for an answer, but only offers yes or no.
These tests really test how well you can get into the head of the designer. Figure out how they're trying to trick you.
The most useful test is a very simple one that any dingbat could do - it 'really' tests for intrinsic motivation. But if you let people know that's whats being tested for it wouldn't work:
AN INTERESTING TEST
In an old Heinlein SF novel, applicants to the Space Academy are required to take a variety of aptitude tests. One of these tests involves dropping beans into a bottle...with the eyes closed. Applicants are told that the test measures "spatial perception" or something along those lines--but it's actually a test of honesty.
I was reminded of this scenario by an article titled For Love of the Game, which appeared in the 3/12 issue of Forbes. There's an old test that was originally used by the military to find people with an aptitude for clerical positions. All you have to do look in a table for a four-digit number and circle it where it appears. It seems like it would be difficult for any literate person to fail at this. Yet this simplistic test turns out to have predictive power for career success across a wide range of fields, including those that have little or nothing to do with clerical ability.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyed 12,700 people (ages 14-22) and then follwed them to see how well they were doing. The subjects were paid $50 to take several tests, including a traditional Army intelligence test and the coding-speed test described above. They had no particular incentive to do well on any of the tests.
Recent research by Carmit Segal of Harvard indicates that performance on the coding-speed test has significant predictive power for the individual's income 20 years later. This is true even when holding IQ score constant. And for participants who never earned a college degree, the coding-speed measurement has more predictive power than does IQ score.
The explanation suggested by Carmit is that what is really being measured by the coding speed test is intrinsic motivation: how much effort will someone put into the performance of a task when the only reward is the task itself? Just like Heinlein's bean-in-the-bottle test measures what someone will do when no one is watching, the coding-speed test as performed by BLS measures what someone will do when no one is paying or otherwise rewarding good performance.
The authors of the Forbes article assert that the test, however useful for measuring intrinsic motivation, cannot be used legally or ethically in an employment situation, since such use would inherently involve deception: In order to measure intrinsic motivation, you need to tell or at least imply to applicants that the test results don't matter--but if you're using the results for hiring purposes, then of course they do matter. (They suggest alternative ways to measure intrinsic motivation which they believe do pass the ethics and legality tests.)
But I wonder about something else. Some schools have been experimenting with paying students to get good grades, and quite a few parents are also doing this.
If intrinsic motivation matters in career success--and I think it clearly does--then what is the impact of not-so-subtly teaching kids that they need not do anything for which they are not explicitly rewarded?
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_photoncourier_archive.html#3853590478676286992
The Mensa test is also an honesty test, not even an IQ test, btw. But you've already failed that. I await your claim of a perfect score. |
