8 ms·

I went ahead and did it all... by the time I was half way through, perseverance came into question. Wow that is boring. At about the 3/4 mark, I guess, some of

• techstrategist 4y ago
  Don’t take this too seriously, but this sounds like my prior experience with undiagnosed adhd.
  • melissalobos 4y ago
    > undiagnosed adhd I don't know if not wanting to perform boring activities in your free time is a great indicator of adhd. How far would a neurotypical person get into a long terms and conditions disclaimer before wanting to quit if there didn't seem to be a good/any reward?
    • DrewADesign 4y ago
      ADHD brains crave novelty and mental stimulation. Random challenging quizzes are like crack to me, personally. Half of them I get bored with immediately and drop.
      • philosopher1234 4y ago
        All brains crave novelty and mental stimulation.
        • rxhernandez 4y ago
          I've met plenty of people who've never left their metro area in the 3 decades they've been alive. On the other hand, when my girlfriend asks me what I would like to do, she has to qualify it with: "inside of this state." I have driven across multiple states on a whim a few times over the past couple years. The degree to which people crave novelty varies greatly.
          • philosopher1234 4y ago
            I think what you’re describing is a difference in degree not kind
            • arrow7000 4y ago
              ADHD is only a difference in degree not in kind. But that degree can still be significant enough to be crippling.
            • DrewADesign 4y ago
              The difference between a forest fire and a camp fire is a difference in degree, not kind.
        • DrewADesign 4y ago
          Not too often you see someone being glib and pedantic at the same time. ADHD is at least related to a dopamine deficiency and those affected generally self-sooth by seeking stimulation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24997891/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24997891/ Next time, check if your dismissive one-liner makes a valid point.
    • mhh__ 4y ago
      Not wanting or wanting to but failing?
      • jasonladuke0311 4y ago
        Right haha...like, I WANTED to pay my bills and take care of speeding tickets, etc. I just failed miserably at those type of things for a long time.
• ryandvm 4y ago
  Based on my experience with Mensa members, being obsessed with your own intelligence is seemingly the primary criterion for joining Mensa. A long, boring test was probably exactly the selection filter they're looking for.
  • whatshisface 4y ago
    Mensa doesn't need a special filter for that, by virtue of being an IQ organization and not a chemistry/literature/mathematics organization (where it's about using your IQ for something) they will end up with the people who haven't joined an organization that's more specific to their interests: a great implicit filter for people who don't have interests other than solving puzzles.
    • mdp2021 4y ago
      We are not restricted to one membership (of course). Editing for the skimmer who will not read the implicit: it's about an interest in meta-skills, transversal, exportable.
  • stavros 4y ago
    I joined Mensa today because I overheard some good reviews, but that's my biggest fear. I want a group that I can go for coffee and have interesting conversations with, not a group of people who are all about how smart they are. I don't want to be biased before even going, though.
    • shepardrtc 4y ago
      > not a group of people who are all about how smart they are. You're going to be disappointed. Seriously though, you can find incredibly intelligent people in the strangest of places. And you find less than you might think in the most obvious of places. Once you learn what to look for, I think it becomes easier to find people to have interesting conversations with. Personally, I find that curiosity about the world around you is a very good indicator of someone I would enjoy speaking with.
• drchopchop 4y ago
  Mensa is catnip for narcissists who are great at pattern recognition.
  • nvahalik 4y ago
    Yeah. I did pretty well and I'm definitely not Mensa smart... but a lot of the middle questions were pretty easy to pick up on... or/nor/differences/unions...
  • emteycz 4y ago
    Just like the entire IQ thing
  • pizza234 4y ago
    You're entitled about your opinion about catnip, but pattern recognition is an important component of problem solving.
  • mdp2021 4y ago
    > catnip for And an opportunity for people looking for people with whom to have some productive exchange. People who already tried some selection filter before (the IQ), will have no issue applying another afterwards (and discard e.g. the pure narcissists).
  • ASalazarMX 4y ago
    Worse, IQ tests are catnip for people who take IQ tests. If you practice IQ tests, your IQ will increase not because you've become smarter, but because you have more experience with IQ tests.
    • Ekaros 4y ago
      I have always wondered how do they say IQ tests can't be gamed or learned, but I never believed that. There really must be certain number of standard pattern matching ways that can be applied. Just cram these like leetcode and you should get better.
      • 4y ago
• bee_rider 4y ago
  I did ok, but there were some puzzles that just didn't make sense to me. I suspect they were about rotating or reflecting. The xoring ones, though, those are my jam.
  • whatshisface 4y ago
    I don't think anyone who knows the xor trick behind the matrices questions can really say the test is measuring them. :-) Also I think it's funny that this comment thread will be giving 10 points of "practice effect" to everyone who reads it. We are ruining psychological research.
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      Is the trick just knowing what xor is? I haven't done anything like this before, but I did do EE as an undergrad so some xors just jump out at you, haha.
      • whatshisface 4y ago
        I think knowing xor is the trick because once you recognize it, the first half or so of the test becomes a bunch of questions that are exactly the same. It would be one thing if I thought they were equally easy (then I could imagine that I was just saturating them with my Giant Brain(tm)) but for them to be absolutely identical, I think, shows that the test isn't working anymore.
        • TechBro8615 4y ago
          Joke’s on you, I’ve read this entire comment thread and I’ll still get those questions wrong when I try them later today.
        • bee_rider 4y ago
          Well, if you have the giant brain then we will just have to trust your reasoning.
• silisili 4y ago
  LMAO this mirrors my experience exactly. About 10 mins left...I was questioning what I'm doing with my life. Hey, there's a finish button already, let me click that and end this thing. Does that count the rest as wrong? It wasn't clear.
• CGamesPlay 4y ago
  > I scored almost right in the middle of the bell curve. I guess I really suck at pattern matching, or I am just dumb. Well, no, that'd be average, not dumb.
  • jrgoff 4y ago
    On top of that, it's average amongst the group of people who self select into taking such a test.
    • travisjungroth 4y ago
      There's no way they're not accounting for selection bias. This isn't on online poll where you score among x% of people who took the test. They give the test to a (hopefully) representative sample and score you against that.
    • bitshiftfaced 4y ago
      I don't think tests like this one are calibrated by those who happen to take it online. I believe they calibrate these tests by looking at a known test taker's results and comparing them to other test results. The other tests would be the high quality ones used in psychology that have a much larger, less biased selection of test takers.
  • ASalazarMX 4y ago
    And expected, most of us have to fall in the middle of the bell, only the very outliers will be at the extremes. It's normal to think one's very gifted, even boasting about it, but maturing is realizing that most of us are average. At least we can get solace in knowing that intelligence and work is what makes great things, either alone is weak.
• jeroenhd 4y ago
  > I scored almost right in the middle of the bell curve. Congratulations! You're in possession of the statistically perfectly normal pattern matching skills! A score of 100 means that you're as good in pattern matching as a normal human being, assuming the test is served and adjusted to a varied enough population. This being Mensa, an organisation that's known of attracting people who think they are smart, your normal pattern matching skill might still be statistically better than the rest of the populace. Or it might mean that you're normal according to Norwegian standards, which doesn't necessarily say anything about your country. Or it could mean that you're above intelligent but not raised in a western, white society, because IQ measurement is culturally sensitive as well. The homepage doesn't give any details about the population the IQ test was measured against, so it's hard to say what the end result means. Higher number = better pattern matching skills, that's the best explanation I can think of.
• wodenokoto 4y ago
  The problem with measuring IQ is that you don’t want to measure education or culture. Math, history even reading comprehension are all affected by that. IQ testing has sort of settled on pattern matching as a measure of IQ that isn’t correlated with your education or culture you grew up in. Personally I still don’t believe you can’t train for an IQ test.
  • Enginerrrd 4y ago
    Oh you absolutely can train for an IQ test. It's not just pattern matching but also measures one's ability to abstract, and working memory and stuff. The question is to what degree would IQ-test-specific training help you? I'd guess that it would, and it would be measurable and statistically significant, but not that impressive.
    • sitkack 4y ago
      Most of the questions were a progression in a sequence and/or set membership under some operation. Anyone who plays Sudoku, Chess or enjoys abstract algebra would have had an advantage.
      • akvadrako 4y ago
        Only if those skills were generally transferable. Sure you can get better at Chess, but that won't help at all at making you a strong Go player.
• fullstop 4y ago
  I randomly guessed for the last six questions because it was getting boring and still ended up with 121. https://i.imgur.com/hgXGoXn.png https://i.imgur.com/hgXGoXn.png Some of the pattern addition / subtraction stuff was neat though. I also don't put a lot of faith into IQ tests. I've met some incredibly smart people, on paper, who are incredibly dumb when it comes to common sense.
  • ctvo 4y ago
    You don't put a lot of faith in IQ tests but did the following: - Let readers know you didn't really try for the last 6 questions - Took a screenshot of your score to share?!
    • fullstop 4y ago
      Well, you see, I don't think that I'm all that smart.
      • dwaltrip 4y ago
        Humble brag? Maybe you are smarter than you think :)
        • fullstop 4y ago
          No, legit. I have difficulty doing math in my head because the numbers get mixed up. I have to write it down, and I'm not dyslexic.
  • dfxm12 4y ago
    If you don't put a lot of faith in IQ tests, I think it should be for a different reason. Intelligence and common sense are two independent things and an IQ test only attempts to measure one of them.
  • Sharlin 4y ago
    121 sounds reasonable if you guessed the last six ones. What the test measures is essentially how many questions you get right before you start guessing, whether out of boredom or because you don't have enough time to figure the questions out (the test cannot really differentiate between those two). For reference, I scored 133 and had to guess the last three or four ones; this is consistent with the last time I did a test like this several years ago.
• tommyage 4y ago
  I had to go through these things with a psychologist when i was in school and beeing suspended. My focus is very fragile, but these kinds of test actually satisfy so much that I am not paying any attention to the clock ticking. These tasks stimulate the mind, imo. Anyways, I am only scoring the average, nowadays. Now i know, that there are things I can excel at, but at others I dont. These kind of tests were complemented with a few other days, where I had to answer questions, recall stories, talk about things fascinating me, myself and my opinions, picture interpretations, sequences of digits, multiple choices and other things I cant recall. At the start of the following week, these test were rated for multiple sections of knowledge. Then, the average IQ was estimated. What I want to say is: This is only part of the actual estimation. It is the first test, who actually reminded me of these tests. I did not suceed in school. I did start consume drugs on purpose, getting rejected from my school and only did the necessarities. After a few years working, I did start wondering about knowledge and started to pursue studies. If there is a topic that facinates you, such test would complement one. In the end we are all median overall. :)
  • andrelaszlo 4y ago
    Sounds like a lot of smart people with ADHD I know: - Fragile focus (well put) - Drug use - Rejected from school - Humble as hell despite being obviously brilliant (just read through a bunch of your comments) Not saying you have it, but if you're still looking for answers perhaps it's something to look into. It's quite treatable too, if you struggle with anything.
    • throwaway6532 4y ago
      These were my thoughts after reading this too.
• planb 4y ago
  Same here. The last 15 I just randomly clicked anything with 10 mins left on the clock because I got bored and wanted to see the end. Still scored 105 so maybe I was lucky...
  • Sharlin 4y ago
    No, it appears the test is quite calibrated based on these HN comments. You got a bit more than half of them before starting to guess, so you got a slightly higher than average result.
• jancsika 4y ago
  If an IQ-based club sets its threshold too high, then it might end up accepting Mozart but excluding Beethoven. I'd personally find that fascinating, but the other 100% of the population would probably find it incoherent at best. If an IQ-based club sets its threshold low enough to include a Beethoven, then it's no longer really an IQ-based club. (E.g., our threshold is "Edgar" because we want the smartest people and also we really like Edgar's output.) Edit: I changed "Edgar" above to "Edgar's output." Let me explain: Mozart had the "bigger brain," but Beethoven obsessed over a narrower set of techniques and devoted his life to exploring every facet of them (much to the detriment of everything else in his life). Probably for that reason, his output is considered to be at a comparable level by most historians. This is true even by modernist analysis standards which attempt to exclude considerations like influence. You can probably find similar cases straddling any IQ threshold, where you want to include output from X and Y even though Y's IQ didn't meet your threshold.
• stazz1 4y ago
  I think after a point, skill in pattern matching and skill in creative invention pull in opposite directions.
• deleted 4y ago
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