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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: coug who wrote (45118)	7/12/1999 10:53:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

IQ tests are just a market piece of psychometry. Each institution that wishes to use them buys the ones they want to give and uses them as they wish. One school argues that there is a psychometric factor "g" or general intelligence. Any tast that correlates highly on g is an intelligence test. Intelligence testing, in my opinion, is often an elaborate hoax. It is a timed test, and in one sense depends on how long it takes to answer the test. Some "learning disabled" people are able to get extra time. Others are able to substitute other forms of tests. Many of my best students (especially in accounting) have perfect grades and less than average IQ. Some people with very high IQ cannot finish even rather simple tasks. Testing is sometimes conducted crookedly. A famous case last year had students in Singapore getting e-mail answer from NY before they took the test in Singapore. At best, IQ tests "explain" about a querter of the variance in performance in demanding intellectual tasks. I believe we need tasks that give someone theopportunity to demonstrate competence and originality in complex mental tasks. rather than sequecnes of short unrealistic tasks that are not in anyway related to real intellectual work. Can a person write a short essay, with access to hours of information, that informs the intelligent readers of some they want or ought to know? Can a student do a complete cost analysis of a firm with all the data he needs in a couple of weeks? Can a sailor lay ought a sub search with the fleet he has? Can a soldier stuck in the desert with a broken humvee and a box of junk get the truch back to the base? We don't need no stinking IQ tests.