GIQTest – IQ Test Journal

IQ tests are designed to test a person’s intelligence without actually defining what intelligence really is?  Is it being a good student or having the ability to read well or write with perfect spelling?  What about “common sense” intelligence like being a physician who smokes three packs of cigarettes per day or the “intelligent person” whose personal life is horrible?  Or what about the high school dropout who has started his own company and has worked his way into a life of luxury?  Clearly, intelligence has many faces and only a portion of that is being assessed in the standard IQ tests.  The biggest problem, according to www.audiblox2000.com, is that intelligence hasn’t yet been defined adequately and there isn’t anyone who really knows what intelligence tests are designed to measure. Even as early as the 1920s, Walter Lippmann noted that intelligence tests were nothing but stunts and that “we cannot measure intelligence when we have not defined it.” The 1962 book “The Tyranny of Testing” and others like it led the National Education Association in 1976 to recommend the elimination of standardized intelligence, aptitude or achievement testing in the group setting.  As time has gone on, however, the NEA has completely changed its stand and now believes in the need for periodic comprehensive testing of students, despite problems with the testing itself.