A couple of days ago some dude in the Calgary Mensa FB group posted a link to some 3 question IQ test: rottentomatoes/quiz/i-q-test/ His post had a bunch of stats like 33% of people get all 3 questions wrong or the average score of Harvard undergrads is 1.7. Then all the members of the group start posting. All 3 right in about 3 minutes. That kind of thing. One guy admitted to getting one wrong, but then wrote a paragraph full of big (polysyllabic, if youre him) words about how his mind was in the wrong place because hes spent the past several days constantly dominating other IQ tests and he didnt expect it to be that simple. So. Ive been a lurker on the fringes of Mensa for a decade or so. I like the fact that Im smart enough to qualify, but I really cant stand the people. The whole thing is just affirmation for people who, like myself, have intelligence but still failed to amount to anything. Theyre bitter about it, and so they send each other little tests and crap to further prove their awesomeness, despite their failure to make it in the real world. So it becomes a double edged sword. I can never decide whether to use it in job applications or not. I want people to know Im smart so I can get the job, but I dont want them to know that I know Im smart because Ill have to work with those people eventually. It just sets a person up for bad situations. The last one was while I was digging through an unfamiliar tool chest at work. Do you have any screwdrivers in here? Yeah, in the drawer that says screwdrivers, Mensa Boy. Happens to everyone; but if you go around telling people how genius you are, it can only end badly. Now, the 3 questions. They are really not that difficult if you can get past the human instinct to find patterns and just do the math. But if these people are so damned intelligent, why cant they evaluate beyond their own egos? For instance, why would a test like this be given to Harvard undergrads? Why is it only 3 questions, and under what circumstances would an exam of only 3 questions be given in a collegiate situation? When would a Harvard student have nothing better to do than this? When would they care? In my opinion, this test is a troll. It was probably made up by some dude on the early internet, and has festered there since then. But these geniuses cant see that. All they see is an opportunity to prove how great they are. Theyre so great, in fact, that they could have gone to Harvard if they had only wanted to.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 16:29:50 +0000