The Student Room Group

Painfully average IQ -- 95, destined for mediocrity

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Original post by leopard202
I also feel like people who score highly on the IQ scale and place a high emphasis on it, but for whatever reason do not meet their expectations for what that should amount to can sometimss become very bitter and disappointed. I know a couple of people who have a slight covert narcissism complex from their measured intelligence as opposed to how they've manifested their abilities in their life.

Lol I was being sarcastic. And you're right. That is because IQ is not the only contributor to success. Neither is being born with rich parents, or being born very good looking, or even being born into a stable family, etc.

Those things increase the odds, but life is just more complicated than that.
Original post by NonIndigenous
Lol I was being sarcastic. And you're right. That is because IQ is not the only contributor to success. Neither is being born with rich parents, or being born very good looking, or even being born into a stable family, etc.

Those things increase the odds, but life is just more complicated than that.

Oh sorry, I thought i was replying to OP's original thread, must have been on the wrong page. Lol!
Busted
Seriously... my anon feature has gone haywire. It keeps turning on and off randomly wtf. I'm annoyed.
Reply 44
Original post by NonIndigenous
Exams are not much about using your intelligence really. They're about recalling information, mostly, not problem solving.

IQ = problem solving

There are plenty of people that have good IQ and don't use it. Someone with 130 IQ who only uses half of it, won't do as well as someone with 95 IQ who uses all of it. Like others said here, work ethic matters a lot.

Obviously it makes life harder. IQ is not 'meaningless' like some say. If it were, then admittedly the difference between our IQ and chimpanzees would be meaningless too, which is stupid. But life success is also far more complex than being simplified down to only a matter of IQ. The friends you make, how you treat people, your personal values, what you use your IQ for, etc. All these things matter. Some people with very high IQs end up putting their potential to very bad use. That's less than useless, it is destructive. You do not need a high IQ to get a leg-up in life on people like that, you just need to be a decent person.

Who says that IQ = problem solving?
What is intelligence?
Who says that IQ tests have anything to do with intelligence?
Are IQ tests culturally biased?
Exams are exams and may have little or nothing to do with intelligence! Discuss.
Before you could effectively post the conclusions you posted you would need to deal effectively with the above questions.
Reply 45
Original post by NonIndigenous
Seriously... my anon feature has gone haywire. It keeps turning on and off randomly wtf. I'm annoyed.

You don't need anon anyway.lol. What use is it anyway?
Original post by mgi
Who says that IQ = problem solving?
What is intelligence?
Who says that IQ tests have anything to do with intelligence?
Are IQ tests culturally biased?
Exams are exams and may have little or nothing to do with intelligence! Discuss.
Before you could effectively post the conclusions you posted you would need to deal effectively with the above questions.

The above questions have already been dealt with for over a century. This is one thing that is frankly futile to 'discuss', if the evidence to this day has still failed to convince some people. If any branch of psychology has enough rigor to claim scientific status, it is psychometrics, the science of mental measurement. The only people I've come across who deny validity of intelligence and IQ tests do so on ideological grounds. I cannot argue against ideology, nobody can. Ideas are in your head. Intelligence tests are as biased as the footwear industry is biased because Asians have smaller feet on average. Stating or implying that people are "born equal" in their innate abilities is a fundamentally far left / communist doctrine, with no scientific validity.

I have come to appreciate deconstructivism and using it to break concepts down to their first principles. I do it to improve my own understanding. Not for the purpose of ideological gerrymandering. 'Natural selection' is one of those first principles, as is the variance in intelligence and physical attributes comprising individual people that results from natural selection. Intelligence tests are designed to measure some of these variances.

I will 'discuss' this no further. I have life to attend to. You can believe what you like.
Reply 47
Original post by NonIndigenous
The above questions have already been dealt with for over a century. This is one thing that is frankly futile to 'discuss', if the evidence to this day has still failed to convince some people. If any branch of psychology has enough rigor to claim scientific status, it is psychometrics, the science of mental measurement. The only people I've come across who deny validity of intelligence and IQ tests do so on ideological grounds. I cannot argue against ideology, nobody can. Ideas are in your head. Intelligence tests are as biased as the footwear industry is biased because Asians have smaller feet on average. Stating or implying that people are "born equal" in their innate abilities is a fundamentally far left / communist doctrine, with no scientific validity.

I have come to appreciate deconstructivism and using it to break concepts down to their first principles. I do it to improve my own understanding. Not for the purpose of ideological gerrymandering. 'Natural selection' is one of those first principles, as is the variance in intelligence and physical attributes comprising individual people that results from natural selection. Intelligence tests are designed to measure some of these variances.

I will 'discuss' this no further. I have life to attend to. You can believe what you like.


And you can believe what you like as well and you do! And your comment that IQ has been " dealt with for over a century" is a convenient dodge and is actually quite meaningless. But it conveniently stops you going through the arguments rigorously or even bothering to define what" intelligence" actually is. I have no idea why you are linking physical attributes such as Asian footsize to debates or discussions regarding IQ . Bizarre! It does not even begin to address the issue of "cultural bias' in IQ tests either anyway.
Original post by mgi
And you can believe what you like as well and you do! And your comment that IQ has been " dealt with for over a century" is a convenient dodge and is actually quite meaningless. But it conveniently stops you going through the arguments rigorously or even bothering to define what" intelligence" actually is. I have no idea why you are linking physical attributes such as Asian footsize to debates or discussions regarding IQ . Bizarre! It does not even begin to address the issue of "cultural bias' in IQ tests either anyway.

Fine, it is as culturally biased as basketball is towards African Americans. I think you got my point earlier already though.

Enough. I can't be bothered to go through arguments that have already been laid out on deaf ears of anyone whose attended secondary school. My original point: it's futile.
Reply 49
Many people become successful out of luck, such as making the right investments randomly, you don’t have to be naturally intelligent. Besides even someone with a high IQ won’t succeed if they don’t put in work. Hard work will get you further than being intelligent but lazy (of course a combination of a high IQ and hard work is ideal) and even being average is nothing bad, it means you can relate to people more rather than feeling “too intelligent” so that you can’t have conversations as easily.
Reply 50
Original post by NonIndigenous
Fine, it is as culturally biased as basketball is towards African Americans. I think you got my point earlier already though.

Enough. I can't be bothered to go through arguments that have already been laid out on deaf ears of anyone whose attended secondary school. My original point: it's futile.

"You said :" Fine, it is as culturally biased as basketball is towards African Americans. I think you got my point earlier already though." I did not get your last point on "cultural bias" and IQ tests or this one because neither point made sense and you were determined to avoid defining what intelligence is, or what , in the context of IQ tests, 'cultural bias 'is!
Lol. Obviously , you can't be bothered to explain yourself because it will challenge your embedded beliefs which are probsbly not correct anyway!
Yiu certainly didn't lay out any arguments; you gave Asian footwear and African American basketball as your examples of " cultural bias" which shows you are struggling with IQ tests and intelligence concepts. And these concepts were certainly not debated in detail in your secondary school or mine. And you dodged all the other questions i raised as well. You can't hide behind "futile" unless you are , in fact ,struggling with anything more than a cursory understanding of the critical areas of the topic.
Original post by mgi
"You said :" Fine, it is as culturally biased as basketball is towards African Americans. I think you got my point earlier already though." I did not get your last point on "cultural bias" and IQ tests or this one because neither point made sense and you were determined to avoid defining what intelligence is, or what , in the context of IQ tests, 'cultural bias 'is!
Lol. Obviously , you can't be bothered to explain yourself because it will challenge your embedded beliefs which are probsbly not correct anyway!
Yiu certainly didn't lay out any arguments; you gave Asian footwear and African American basketball as your examples of " cultural bias" which shows you are struggling with IQ tests and intelligence concepts. And these concepts were certainly not debated in detail in your secondary school or mine. And you dodged all the other questions i raised as well. You can't hide behind "futile" unless you are , in fact ,struggling with anything more than a cursory understanding of the critical areas of the topic.

Do you like hummus?
Original post by NonIndigenous
Exams are not much about using your intelligence really. They're about recalling information, mostly, not problem solving.

IQ = problem solving

There are plenty of people that have good IQ and don't use it. Someone with 130 IQ who only uses half of it, won't do as well as someone with 95 IQ who uses all of it. Like others said here, work ethic matters a lot.

Obviously it makes life harder. IQ is not 'meaningless' like some say. If it were, then admittedly the difference between our IQ and chimpanzees would be meaningless too, which is stupid. But life success is also far more complex than being simplified down to only a matter of IQ. The friends you make, how you treat people, your personal values, what you use your IQ for, etc. All these things matter. Some people with very high IQs end up putting their potential to very bad use. That's less than useless, it is destructive. You do not need a high IQ to get a leg-up in life on people like that, you just need to be a decent person.

Thank you for this. This is quite inspirational..
Original post by NonIndigenous
I took an IQ test online and got 150 once. I was skeptical, so then I took it again and deliberately chose all the wrong answers, and still got 150.

Fyi. Online IQ tests are basically phishing attempts to get you to click on advertisements. To whomever it may apply.

Only I did mine via a psychologist
Original post by medicboy02
I feel like this could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you think you are destined for mediocrity, the more that will become reality. There are plenty of people with average IQs who have done big things and you shouldn't let it hold you back. I'm not saying you're going to go win a Nobel prize anytime soon, but that doesn't mean you will live a life of mediocrity. From the sounds of it, you are doing quite well for yourself. Also, if you can't find the discipline to expand your knowledge, do you really want to? Focus on the people or things in life that give you joy; if you have lived a happy life playing on your Xbox, talking with your friends etc, with a stable job and financial status, I'd argue that is a better life than many.

If you are comparing yourself to some arbitrary idea of a 'hyper-successful' you then, of course, it is going to dwarf any realistic standard you should hold for yourself. Without getting too philosophical, if you imagine a very strong ant but then compare its strength to a human, it is going to look very weak. But you wouldn't call it a weak ant. In your case, if you compare your pretty successful life (house, good income, a hobby that provides a good deal of entertainment) to some loose idea of a you that has mastered your field and is holding a top position in your company, then of course you are going to feel down and mediocre.

Hope this helps and good luck :smile:

Thank you it does.
Reply 55
Original post by NonIndigenous
Do you like hummus?

Do you like sex with hummus?
(edited 3 years ago)
Ok so let’s take me as an example.

When I was younger I was taken to a fancy careers institution and given and iq test and other intelligence tests. The iq test results were disastrous and they said I had the intelligence of a .... person ( don’t want to say the words but let’s say it was very bad). The assessor said I wasn’t clever enough for university based on the test results. Now I have 12 o levels/ GCSEs and a 2:2 degree from Manchester university. I have written a book about getting into Oxford and have helped many in this site get in. I have won several community awards on tsr.

What I am saying, op, is that if I had let my iq score define me, I maybe would not have gone on to achieve all those things

You tell me you have a 32k a year job, ( I earn less than average) you own your own home and have a masters degree with distinction? I find that impressive, frankly.

If you don’t want to be more successful, it doesn’t matter. Nobody is judging you. I think you are doing just fine, but that is my humble opinion.

I know I will not get far professionally, but that is because I am shy and lack confidence, not because of my iq, which, to be honest, I had forgotten about until today.

I am only confident on tsr.

Much love to you, op.
Reply 57
Original post by NonIndigenous
Fine, it is as culturally biased as basketball is towards African Americans. I think you got my point earlier already though.

Enough. I can't be bothered to go through arguments that have already been laid out on deaf ears of anyone whose attended secondary school. My original point: it's futile.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/theweek.com/articles-amp/731957/iq-test-dark-history
This could be a reason why you avoided going into details about IQ tests!
Original post by Anonymous
I had an IQ test done in 2009 and that was the very painful result. The psychologist said not to place that much emphasis on this because IQ tests are not that very reliable. Having done my own research though, he may not have a point.
I never achieved anything in school and got very poor GCSEs.
I want to learn new content and expand my knowledge, but can never find the discipline and would rather watch films or play my XBox. Plus, it takes me forever to learn something.
My undergrad i got a 2:2 in a biological science degree where i had some of the lowest marks in the year and barely scraped the 2:2.
I got distinction on my masters. But it was bumped up from a merit due to illness.

I have managed to buy my house and live by myself and have a job that earns about 32k. But I can’t get promoted no matter how hard I try -- i went for years unemployed.. I have a learning difficulty which doesn’t help..

What should I do?

What is your learning difficulty? That is probably a far more important factor than any unreliable test.

Anyway, it seems like you are doing really well - earning well above average and been able to buy your own house. Nothing stops you learning things for either interest or personal development.
Original post by ajj2000
What is your learning difficulty? That is probably a far more important factor than any unreliable test.

Anyway, it seems like you are doing really well - earning well above average and been able to buy your own house. Nothing stops you learning things for either interest or personal development.

Dyspraxia

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