Argh it's so disappointing you didn't get detailed results! I just did some cognitive tests for ADHD which turned out to involve the Weschler IQ test, and by far the most informative part was looking at the relative results. e.g. My worst section was the working memory section, and only 1.9% (I think?) of test takers had that big a relative split between the working memory and arithmetic sections. But because I was still in the 93rd percentile for the working memory part, none of my teachers would've picked it up as an issue - but since I've had 35 years with this brain I knew it was going to be my biggest weakness.
Whilst I am sure there are some lovely people in Mensa and it has enabled some great friendships. The whole pretentious and arrogant vibe of a society pretty much defined by "We are a society comprised of only the most intelligent people and if you pay us money you can be a member of our club of very intelligent people" is kinda ironic. IQ tests have also been used to justify some pretty horrific acts in the past, esp. against ethnic minorities and those from poorer social classes. Despite how flawed the idea of a single universal metric of "intelligence" and the idea that any test won't include cultural biases.
In theory you're not supposed to be able to practice, so its wild they provide practice tests. (Of course, you absolutely _can_ practice, which is yet another reason iq tests are not what they claim. But mensa kind of necessarily is claiming "this is a measure of innate intellegence" camp, so one wouldn't expect them to acknowledge this, even tacitly.)
My understanding is that the practice tests help eliminate an "understanding the test" bias that might come from being more or less familiar with the test-taking procedure because it is similar or not to tests you took in school.
When I did mine (before it was online) the person showed you each of the criteria and how you did. In my area it's basically just a social gathering. The one thing that I found striking is how fast and comfortable conversations move along when you don't have to keep stopping to repeat and explain things. You can use more complex references and pretty much assume people will get it. Just keep in mind. Everyone there still has different life experiences and really, It's just people.
Gah. Had my first IQ test inflicted upon me as an elementary school kid in the 60's. I scored quite high, so they put me in an after school craft program for "enrichment" (probably because I was a girl and they didn't know what else to do with me). Fortunately, the concept of "IQ" and the expectations that come along with it are not nearly as prevalent as they were then. "IQ" has very little to do with being smart or successful in the real world. How much does it cost these days to join Mensa so they will release your test results?
What was "enrichment"? I thought reading lots of sci-fi books was really enriching. The adults didn't suggest that. SF writers back then were smarter than real life adults. LOL
@@psikeyhackr6914 IMO "enrichment" in the U.S. public school system means providing something extra for certain students to keep them busy regardless of student interest. And, yes I read every SF book in our local library. Still an avid SF fan.
@@yvetterobertson2770 Reading what SF writers imagine as how future societies would raise kids is often interesting: Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin Voyage from Yesteryear by James P Hogan
@@yvetterobertson2770 The sad part about the US school system is that it's built to appease the lowest denominator of people rather than set students to a real standard. Politicians have been trying to step around the system for years. Enrichment classes are exactly what you say they are "to keep students busy".
IQ is about your ability to recognize patterns and therefore problem solve. IQ was never really taken too seriously and mainly used to help children get an education that is more or less at their level. MENSA is not the only agency that tests IQ either and joining MENSA is a waste of time as numerous people cheat on IQ tests to get into MENSA to troll.
I also happened to do this when i was around 19 iirc? I joined for a year, went to some bar trivia. The age demo definitely skews older. I always felt weird and haven't included it in resume's or linkedin because it seems like.... narcissistic and conceited or something? Idk it was a neat experience but i didnt renew after a year.
Interesting! Congratulations!! I think my adult diagnosed ADD explains how I did much better on SAT vs PSAT and scored differently on different sections of GRE when I took it multiple times - my SAT to IQ equivalent (no longer done statistically in recent decade or so!?) of 144 is lower than my best combination of GRE scores if I remember correctly - anyway arguably this sort of stuff comes from a military mindset of not wanting a certain type of useful people to die in battle right away and for more civilian things yeah determining a facet of who is able to be a medical or other doctor makes some sense - obviously always doing more to make these tests culture blind as possible makes sense but yeah disadvantaged people however defined will often struggle with these tests indeed… I know people with definitely I feel tremendous life struggles who’ve aced the SAT so yeah one never knows well congratulations you genius and thanks for sharing!🎬♾♾♾♾♾☮️💟🌈🥰😍😘😻🤩🤯🚀🌌🗽🗽🗽…
What do you study for an IQ test? What has MENSA ever done besides say that you must be intelligent to join. I let my membership expire after a year. IQ dropped 20 points. It was worth it. That is weird. Back in the day the results were sent by snail mail and they reported the score.
I don't do much with Mensa, but I do like to go to a meeting once or twice per year. I have quite a low self-esteem driven by being considered "different" for most of my life. It is nice to just have random discussions with people in similar situations. Your experiences may differ of course, and I don't know how Mensa in the US works, but here, there's very few people with egos.
Haha I was in Mensa briefly back in the 80's or 90's. As far as I could ever tell it was a social organization for rather boring and stuck-up people. It may have changed wildly since then I suppose...
And psychologists will be dumbfounded if you tell them after the test: yeah it could have been better, but I missed quite a few points on the easy questions later on, as my concentration was wavering by then. The opposite is true as well: if your intelligence is high enough, you'll automatically develop strategies to cope with your problems. And thus ADHD tests can show up blank. When I did my latest test row as part of a rehab due to burnout caused by badly managed ADHD, I scored perfectly normal, to the last decimal. It was almost comical. The same psychologist that was taken aback about my disappointment about "fluking" the IQ test was not getting it when I told her how stressfull and exhausting it was doing said concentration test. I didn't mention to her, that I had to do the concentration test first and the IQ test right after that one... well not right after. It took me a few minutes to help the technician to sort out the licensing/IT problems for the IQ test. So that probably counts as recovery? ;) Summa: most tests are made to meassure one category. If you happen to fall into several... it can get interessting.
Congratulations! Any MENSA members I have met were a bit pretentious so I would just celebrate making it, but, not bother joining. Funny that they're listed as being in Hurst. I never would have guessed that.
I've been in Mensa for decades, and most members I know don't tell people. For me, only my close friends and direct family members know. Sure, there are some pretentious people in Mensa, but I would wager less so than in general. Most actually don't think that highly of themselves.
@@Xiph1980 Yeah. Probably better not to mention it in most cases, or to really talk about ones' IQ in general. If one happens to be the smartest person in the room, but then says nothing of it, what is lost? If one brings it up, and it comes off like trying to brag, or potentially makes other people feel unhappy, what is gained?... Bad enough as-is, if one talks about ones' interests, and people think they are trying to brag (or if one finds that most people don't know enough about the sorts of things one has interest in to even really make it worthwhile to try to explain what exactly the thing they are working on, "actually is"). This is already pretty bad at the level of being "kinda smart but not particularly smart". ...
Ah IQ tests.
A very useful tool to accurately measure one's ability to do IQ tests.
Argh it's so disappointing you didn't get detailed results! I just did some cognitive tests for ADHD which turned out to involve the Weschler IQ test, and by far the most informative part was looking at the relative results.
e.g. My worst section was the working memory section, and only 1.9% (I think?) of test takers had that big a relative split between the working memory and arithmetic sections. But because I was still in the 93rd percentile for the working memory part, none of my teachers would've picked it up as an issue - but since I've had 35 years with this brain I knew it was going to be my biggest weakness.
I have no idea if I'm smart enough to join Mensa. I am smart enough not to.
And why is that? I'm sorry you think that way of other people you don't even know, purely based on a number on some test.
Whilst I am sure there are some lovely people in Mensa and it has enabled some great friendships.
The whole pretentious and arrogant vibe of a society pretty much defined by "We are a society comprised of only the most intelligent people and if you pay us money you can be a member of our club of very intelligent people" is kinda ironic.
IQ tests have also been used to justify some pretty horrific acts in the past, esp. against ethnic minorities and those from poorer social classes.
Despite how flawed the idea of a single universal metric of "intelligence" and the idea that any test won't include cultural biases.
"I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member!" --Groucho Marks
In theory you're not supposed to be able to practice, so its wild they provide practice tests. (Of course, you absolutely _can_ practice, which is yet another reason iq tests are not what they claim. But mensa kind of necessarily is claiming "this is a measure of innate intellegence" camp, so one wouldn't expect them to acknowledge this, even tacitly.)
My understanding is that the practice tests help eliminate an "understanding the test" bias that might come from being more or less familiar with the test-taking procedure because it is similar or not to tests you took in school.
I think it makes sense to have a practice test to help people familiarise themselves with the format/pace
interesting how in different countries the test is different. For me it was only the figure out the pattern kind of questions
i'm gonna join densa
When I did mine (before it was online) the person showed you each of the criteria and how you did. In my area it's basically just a social gathering. The one thing that I found striking is how fast and comfortable conversations move along when you don't have to keep stopping to repeat and explain things. You can use more complex references and pretty much assume people will get it. Just keep in mind. Everyone there still has different life experiences and really, It's just people.
Gah. Had my first IQ test inflicted upon me as an elementary school kid in the 60's. I scored quite high, so they put me in an after school craft program for "enrichment" (probably because I was a girl and they didn't know what else to do with me). Fortunately, the concept of "IQ" and the expectations that come along with it are not nearly as prevalent as they were then. "IQ" has very little to do with being smart or successful in the real world.
How much does it cost these days to join Mensa so they will release your test results?
What was "enrichment"?
I thought reading lots of sci-fi books was really enriching. The adults didn't suggest that. SF writers back then were smarter than real life adults. LOL
@@psikeyhackr6914 IMO "enrichment" in the U.S. public school system means providing something extra for certain students to keep them busy regardless of student interest.
And, yes I read every SF book in our local library. Still an avid SF fan.
@@yvetterobertson2770
Reading what SF writers imagine as how future societies would raise kids is often interesting:
Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
Voyage from Yesteryear by James P Hogan
@@yvetterobertson2770 The sad part about the US school system is that it's built to appease the lowest denominator of people rather than set students to a real standard. Politicians have been trying to step around the system for years. Enrichment classes are exactly what you say they are "to keep students busy".
IQ is about your ability to recognize patterns and therefore problem solve.
IQ was never really taken too seriously and mainly used to help children get an education that is more or less at their level.
MENSA is not the only agency that tests IQ either and joining MENSA is a waste of time as numerous people cheat on IQ tests to get into MENSA to troll.
I'd love to know more about the whole Mensa thing. Seems like an interesting topic.
I also happened to do this when i was around 19 iirc? I joined for a year, went to some bar trivia. The age demo definitely skews older. I always felt weird and haven't included it in resume's or linkedin because it seems like.... narcissistic and conceited or something? Idk it was a neat experience but i didnt renew after a year.
Interesting! Congratulations!! I think my adult diagnosed ADD explains how I did much better on SAT vs PSAT and scored differently on different sections of GRE when I took it multiple times - my SAT to IQ equivalent (no longer done statistically in recent decade or so!?) of 144 is lower than my best combination of GRE scores if I remember correctly - anyway arguably this sort of stuff comes from a military mindset of not wanting a certain type of useful people to die in battle right away and for more civilian things yeah determining a facet of who is able to be a medical or other doctor makes some sense - obviously always doing more to make these tests culture blind as possible makes sense but yeah disadvantaged people however defined will often struggle with these tests indeed… I know people with definitely I feel tremendous life struggles who’ve aced the SAT so yeah one never knows well congratulations you genius and thanks for sharing!🎬♾♾♾♾♾☮️💟🌈🥰😍😘😻🤩🤯🚀🌌🗽🗽🗽…
Congratulations on getting into Mensa!
What do you study for an IQ test?
What has MENSA ever done besides say that you must be intelligent to join. I let my membership expire after a year. IQ dropped 20 points. It was worth it.
That is weird. Back in the day the results were sent by snail mail and they reported the score.
I don't do much with Mensa, but I do like to go to a meeting once or twice per year. I have quite a low self-esteem driven by being considered "different" for most of my life. It is nice to just have random discussions with people in similar situations. Your experiences may differ of course, and I don't know how Mensa in the US works, but here, there's very few people with egos.
Haha I was in Mensa briefly back in the 80's or 90's. As far as I could ever tell it was a social organization for rather boring and stuck-up people. It may have changed wildly since then I suppose...
Folks with ADHD usually test lower on IQ tests for the reasons you talked about when exiting after the test.
And psychologists will be dumbfounded if you tell them after the test: yeah it could have been better, but I missed quite a few points on the easy questions later on, as my concentration was wavering by then.
The opposite is true as well: if your intelligence is high enough, you'll automatically develop strategies to cope with your problems. And thus ADHD tests can show up blank.
When I did my latest test row as part of a rehab due to burnout caused by badly managed ADHD, I scored perfectly normal, to the last decimal. It was almost comical. The same psychologist that was taken aback about my disappointment about "fluking" the IQ test was not getting it when I told her how stressfull and exhausting it was doing said concentration test.
I didn't mention to her, that I had to do the concentration test first and the IQ test right after that one... well not right after. It took me a few minutes to help the technician to sort out the licensing/IT problems for the IQ test. So that probably counts as recovery? ;)
Summa: most tests are made to meassure one category. If you happen to fall into several... it can get interessting.
Can you do the mensa iq test online?
Congratulations! Any MENSA members I have met were a bit pretentious so I would just celebrate making it, but, not bother joining. Funny that they're listed as being in Hurst. I never would have guessed that.
I've been in Mensa for decades, and most members I know don't tell people. For me, only my close friends and direct family members know. Sure, there are some pretentious people in Mensa, but I would wager less so than in general. Most actually don't think that highly of themselves.
@@Xiph1980 Yeah. Probably better not to mention it in most cases, or to really talk about ones' IQ in general.
If one happens to be the smartest person in the room, but then says nothing of it, what is lost?
If one brings it up, and it comes off like trying to brag, or potentially makes other people feel unhappy, what is gained?...
Bad enough as-is, if one talks about ones' interests, and people think they are trying to brag (or if one finds that most people don't know enough about the sorts of things one has interest in to even really make it worthwhile to try to explain what exactly the thing they are working on, "actually is"). This is already pretty bad at the level of being "kinda smart but not particularly smart".
...
@Norris Elizabeth Go scam someone else.