To the best of my limited knowledge, general intelligence is produced by finding associations between ideas held in working memory. The machines that carry it

To the best of my limited knowledge, general intelligence is produced by finding associations between ideas held in working memory. The machines that carry it out in the brain are unreliable and have capacity limits, so the fewer ideas and associations needed to solve a problem, the more likely success is. For a math test, reducing g loading means having simple problems that rely on previously-learned information, rather than multi-step problems and problems that require invention. This is trivial to arrange. Obviously this will not make a dull person able to pass the test, but we're talking about college prep tests, where the competition is among the people on the top part of the g bell curve. The MENSA issue is one of grossly insufficient correlation, since the organization is based on intelligence, not educational history. g is the psychometric measure most highly correlated with practical outcomes like annual income and mortality risk. I suspect the second most correlated measure is attentional control (focus versus ADD), which is the fuel for the brain's g engine. (Time preference likely has more practical importance than either, but we don't yet know how to measure it.)