Word: iq
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...gauge four abilities: verbal and numerical skills, spatial relations and reasoning. Of the four best-known tests (see chart), the Stanford-Binet is the closest to Binet's original; it takes as long as 1½ hrs., is administered to students individually, and results in a single IQ score. The Wechsler test, also given individually, reports an IQ score for both its verbal and nonverbal sections, as well as an overall figure. The Otis-Lennon, a group test, measures "general intelligence." (Sample question from the version for ten-year-olds: "What is the opposite of 'easy...
...score of 100 is still the norm in today's tests, although none of them use Binet's quotient formula. Instead, since scores were found to distribute themselves along a bell curve-centered at 100-individual IQs are now measured in standard deviations along such a curve. In the tests, about 68% score between 85 and 115; less than 3% score below 70-or above 130. Because scores fluctuate widely in the high IQ range, researchers have scrapped the designation genius (once defined as 140 level or above). Now they prefer more subtle terms like superior and very...
...more tests that are devised, the more educators seem to doubt their validity. For one thing, individual IQ scores are known to vary considerably. The IQs of children, for example, can change 17 points to 20 points up or down before the age of 18, and there is sometimes a marked change from one year to the next. Many experts even question how much IQ scores have to do with intelligence. Few support Harvard Psychologist Richard Herrnstein's position that intelligence is primarily an innate ability, rather than an evolving capacity resulting from the interplay of mental quickness...
...consequence, straight IQ tests are being gradually abandoned in favor of tests that claim merely to measure academic ability. McGraw-Hill, for example, is quietly retiring its old standby, the California Test of Mental Maturity, to avoid "identifying a child with a fixed number." Instead, the firm is promoting a new Short Form Test of Academic Aptitude. It reports verbal and nonverbal scores separately, rather than one intelligence quotient-although a mental-age score is still available upon request...
...only point on which educators generally agree is that IQ tests do seem to be fairly reliable forecasters of future academic success. As for Reggie Jackson and other proud bearers of high IQs, they can still seek gratification in several exclusive societies. The international Mensa society accepts only applicants who can prove they scored in the top 2% on any standard IQ test (among its 32,000 fellows: Isaac Asimov and F. Lee Bailey). The International Society for Philosophical Enquiry is even more select: its members, who now number more than 100, must rank in the 99.9 percentile...