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Hmm... perhaps. But I'm pretty sure that the questions of e.g. the law exam are about laws, and the questions of medical school exams are about anatomy and med

Hmm... perhaps. But I'm pretty sure that the questions of e.g. the law exam are about laws, and the questions of medical school exams are about anatomy and medicinal procedures—not about the "which shape completes the pattern" puzzles from IQ tests. I'm quite certain they are not given IQ tests. The SAT, meanwhile, asks math and English questions. Is Taleb saying that IQ is a bad metric, or is he saying that these other tests are academic and unrealistic, and then referring to them collectively as IQ tests because the results are correlated? Or something else?

barry-cotter 8y ago
IQ tests attempt to measure g, which is some combination of processing speed, capability for abstract thought and working memory, all of those being highly correlated. The GRE and GMAT are just harder versions of the SAT, IQ tests for people who completed middle school. The LSAT is an IQ test with no math portion > It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical and verbal reasoning proficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_School_Admission_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_School_Admission_Test The MCAT has one pure IQ test section out of four. However, all of these tests are highly g loaded. People who can do well on one of them can do well on the others with more or less preparation. That’s what g attempts to measure.
roel_v 8y ago
"But I'm pretty sure that the questions of e.g. the law exam are about laws" I don't know about mcat, but no, lsat isn't about that at all. It would be weird testing people for the thing they're trying to be admitted to. If you google 'lsat sample questions', it"s trivial to find what sort of thing is beimg tested for. Which is not 'complete the pattern', but closer to that (I would argue) than to substantive law questions.
- waterhouse 8y ago
  Fascinating. I didn't realize that was how law school admission worked. By "law exam" I actually had in mind "the final exam" and whatever other tests you have to pass in order to not be thrown out of the program, once you're already in. (It seems the "bar exam" is not a prerequisite for a JD, though.) I guess the question is, which is more selective: law school admissions, or "who actually gets their degree once they're in law school"? Looks like the latter filter lets about one third through [1], while the former seems to pass one half if you just divide total admissions by total applications [2], although if we care more about "top law schools" I see various Google results saying it's more like 25%. So... reasonably similar-sized filters. Huh. I also see an article titled "Law Schools With Low LSAT Medians Have Absurd Academic Attrition Rates" [3]. That would seem to support the notion that the LSAT genuinely is testing ability to do well at law, despite being a non-law exam. [1] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/statistics/enrollment_degrees_awarded.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/l... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/statistics/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources... , see "JD Applicant/Matriculant Data" for e.g. 2016, which shows 351k applications and 145k acceptances (I had to type in "=SUM(B7:B210)" and "=SUM(C7:C210)" to get those totals) [3] https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/law-schools-with-low-lsat-medians-had-absurd-academic-attrition-rates/?rf=1 https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/law-schools-with-low-lsat-me...

barry-cotter 8y ago

IQ tests attempt to measure g, which is some combination of processing speed, capability for abstract thought and working memory, all of those being highly correlated. The GRE and GMAT are just harder versions of the SAT, IQ tests for people who completed middle school. The LSAT is an IQ test with no math portion > It is designed to assess reading comprehension as well as logical and verbal reasoning proficiency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_School_Admission_Test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_School_Admission_Test The MCAT has one pure IQ test section out of four. However, all of these tests are highly g loaded. People who can do well on one of them can do well on the others with more or less preparation. That’s what g attempts to measure.

roel_v 8y ago

"But I'm pretty sure that the questions of e.g. the law exam are about laws" I don't know about mcat, but no, lsat isn't about that at all. It would be weird testing people for the thing they're trying to be admitted to. If you google 'lsat sample questions', it"s trivial to find what sort of thing is beimg tested for. Which is not 'complete the pattern', but closer to that (I would argue) than to substantive law questions.

waterhouse 8y ago
Fascinating. I didn't realize that was how law school admission worked. By "law exam" I actually had in mind "the final exam" and whatever other tests you have to pass in order to not be thrown out of the program, once you're already in. (It seems the "bar exam" is not a prerequisite for a JD, though.) I guess the question is, which is more selective: law school admissions, or "who actually gets their degree once they're in law school"? Looks like the latter filter lets about one third through [1], while the former seems to pass one half if you just divide total admissions by total applications [2], although if we care more about "top law schools" I see various Google results saying it's more like 25%. So... reasonably similar-sized filters. Huh. I also see an article titled "Law Schools With Low LSAT Medians Have Absurd Academic Attrition Rates" [3]. That would seem to support the notion that the LSAT genuinely is testing ability to do well at law, despite being a non-law exam. [1] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/statistics/enrollment_degrees_awarded.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/l... [2] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources/statistics/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_education/resources... , see "JD Applicant/Matriculant Data" for e.g. 2016, which shows 351k applications and 145k acceptances (I had to type in "=SUM(B7:B210)" and "=SUM(C7:C210)" to get those totals) [3] https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/law-schools-with-low-lsat-medians-had-absurd-academic-attrition-rates/?rf=1 https://abovethelaw.com/2018/01/law-schools-with-low-lsat-me...