Word: iq
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Educators' files are filled with records of kids who excelled in IQ tests but who failed to live up to expectations. "A child may score in the 140s and yet be too darned lazy to read a book or do any of the tough groundwork, and he'll fail at school," says the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's John Stalnaker. "Another kid may score much lower in the tests but by sheer devotion to his work, he'll succeed...
...standard IQ tests, agrees Charles O. Ruddy, associate superintendent of schools in Boston, give no clue to a student's "gumption quotient." Moreover, it is not uncommon to find an error of ten points or more in many IQ scores. For example, a child with 120 may not necessarily be brighter than one with 110 or dumber than one with...
Nowadays, the classic Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler-Bellevue IQ tests are given only when educators need to pinpoint the mental ability of someone who seems unusually gifted or retarded and so needs special guidance. They must be administered by an expert and require a session of one hour for each student. Much more common are group intelligence tests (experts prefer to call them "scholastic aptitude" tests) such as the Otis Mental Ability test, which comes in an all-picture version for Grades 1 to 4 and with multiple choice questions for Grades...
...birds' nests, which may be more familiar to a country child than to a kid from a metropolitan housing project. Still, the question of cultural bias can lead to equally difficult problems. It may be, as Theodore Stolarz, director of the Chicago Teachers College Graduate School, contends, that IQ tests mainly predict "how a kid with a good middle-class background will do in middle-class schools." But so far, nobody has devised a "culture free" test that is particularly useful. Besides, such a test might be pointless since the aim of testing is to help guide children toward...
...comforting fact for parents is that few school systems any longer use IQ tests as the sole basis for placing children in various ability groups. Teachers are being urged to use common sense judgments based on observation and on the child's classroom performance. Testing, as a measurement of progress and aptitude, will always have its uses, but the old myth about the omnipotent IQ is finally fading...