10 ms·

University of Cambridge Cognitive Ability Test

106 points by indigodaddy 1y ago

huflungdung 1y ago
[dead]
iammjm 1y ago
Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later.
- qgin 1y ago
  Or is that message the first challenge of the test...
tux3 1y ago
The site seems overloaded at the moment, but if the URL is any indication, this seems to be the ICAR 60: https://icar-project.com/ https://icar-project.com/
- thimkerbell 1y ago
  Though the sample tests there are behind a login page.
jonplackett 1y ago
Man my cognitive abilities have tanked since I was in my 20s. I remember doing IQ tests and scoring 130+ I’m now 43 and other day I was looking up test papers for the 11+ (school entrance exams for 11 year olds) and thinking - damn this is HARD! Anyone else feel like they used to be so much quicker?
- indigodaddy 1y ago
  100% - used to be so much sharper with math and abstract math concepts in my 20s and 30s. Could be just a use it or lose it thing though?
  - mettamage 1y ago
    In part. I notice when I do math again, it comes back.
- BlackjackCF 1y ago
  Do you think it’s really the fact that you were younger or just that you have a lot more responsibilities now? I’m in my early 30s and I definitely feel less sharp than in my 20s, but I also feel like my priorities have changed and I have more responsibilities at work and at home, so I have much less ability to just be able to do very long periods of focused studying/thinking like I used to in my 20s I asked my parents about this as they are both accomplished people and work in STEM/academia. They both mentioned feeling less sharp when they hit their mid-to-late 30s, which corresponds to… when they had kids. I know correlation isn’t causation, but seeing all of my coworkers who have young children now all mention they’ve had a marked decrease in mental acuity for work due to sleep deprivation (and having to prioritize their kids), I’m going to guess this is it. I also wonder if you just had a month to focus on refreshing what you learned in school how quickly it would all come back.
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    I think i would really enjoy a refresh course for university level maths and physics. But perhaps it would be better spent learning new maths and physics, which force a refresh on relevant prerequisite maths.
  - thimkerbell 1y ago
    Is this a test whose abilities would survive being retaken periodically? Because having a baseline to compare against would let you know if your cranium was headed south, or if particular circumstances were contributing to that. (my 2¢: avoid sugar, fast food& other carbs, nitrite meats)
  - tshaddox 1y ago
    I think it’s mostly about your level of interest in taking the test. This can obviously be influenced by your priorities and other responsibilities. Incidentally, I think IQ tests and similar “cognitive tests” are all mostly just measuring the subject’s interest in the test.
    - jonplackett 1y ago
      I think interest and concentration definitely play a part - but to say that’s all it measures is kinda crazy
- mr90210 1y ago
  You describe it as if it’s a bad thing. It’s your brain working as intended. Now, you can be strategic about staying sharp about topics that interest you.
  - abstractbill 1y ago
    It’s your brain working as intended. As intended by whom?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - Jensson 1y ago
      Evolution.
      - jonplackett 1y ago
        It’s more like evolution just doesn’t give a shit about your cognitive abilities once you’ve reproduced…
        Jensson 1y ago
        Most people help their kids, and are pretty old once the kids have moved out, so it matters for most of your life.
- channel_t 1y ago
  Not me. More than half of my 20s were mostly defined by working service industry jobs, hanging around with party kids, staying awake until the sun came up, and basically getting by doing the bare minimum for everything. It was probably the lowest point of my life cognitively. It wasn't really until sometime around my mid-30s that I started feeling pretty sharp and performing well on cognitive tests. I didn't grow up in an environment where there were any cultural expectations of achievement in anything. I had to find all of that on my own through a lot of trial and error. That being said, who knows where I would be today if a nice chunk of my 20s had been less dumb? I ruminate about it fairly often.
- rmah 1y ago
  I'm in my 50's and I feel smarter than I did in my 20's. I'm less energetic certainly, but I can focus better now. And I feel like my knowledge and understanding of mathematics, politics, economics, sciences, history, people, etc, is much better.
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  If you work with some piece of software everyday for 10+ years... I guarantee you the Jr programmers will have a look of terror as you bring them up to speed in a project. Speed is a function of practice, and not potential cognitive gifts. One just becomes hyper-specialized with age if you aren't careful, and don't explore new technology or hobbies. One Phd physicist I knew often said he was only an expert in Spoons, and while that probably wasn't really true... it did allude to the irrational competitiveness of the insecure. =3
- Flere-Imsaho 1y ago
  > I’m now 43 and other day I was looking up test papers for the 11+ (school entrance exams for 11 year olds) and thinking - damn this is HARD! Are you me? I've been helping my daughter study for the 11+, and some of the questions I really struggle with (I'm 44). However if you look up the answers and see how the answer is calculated/resolved, it does seem like it's a case of just learning the method. This does make me think that to pass the 11+ you basically need to pay for private tuition. We'll see how well my daughter does in a few weeks time (when the 11+ test is conducted). Likewise with a lot of these cognitive IQ tests, if you know the method or tricks you can basically pass no problem... but I'm not 100% sure it means you're "smarter" than everyone else.
- binary132 1y ago
  FWIW, after I started treating sleep apnea my mental sharpness increased a lot over the course of about a year. (I’m 39)
- fuckaj 1y ago
  [dead]
- SamPatt 1y ago
  IQ is age-adjusted. Without the adjustment, it drops quite a bit. Some cognitive abilities diminish more slowly with age (so-called crystallized intelligence), but unfortunately, fluid intelligence drops noticeably much earlier in life than most people would care to realize. You just need to lean into what you know instead of solving novel problems. Or be comfortable knowing that it'll take longer than it used to. Typically, you can still arrive at a solution if you could have before, but you'll need to put more work into it. Sometimes, a lot more work. - A homeschooling father helping with SAT prep
JCM9 1y ago
“Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later.” A Cognitive test struggling under load is ironic/amusing.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
geekamongus 1y ago
"The entire test will take about an hour to complete." Doesn't that skew things? That is a lot of time a lot of people don't have.
- kulahan 1y ago
  No, not in any way. Ability to be present for a test does not have any bearing whatsoever on cognitive ability, nor does any test on the planet account for whether or not the taker is present.
  - tshaddox 1y ago
    I think the suggestion is that people who have less free time might be in more of a rush to complete the test, and that surely affects test results without indicating cognitive ability.
    - indigodaddy 1y ago
      I'd bet they don't consider incomplete tests, and most people I think would just peace out in ten or less questions vs continuing on either uninterested or rushed for time
    - kulahan 1y ago
      Why would they rush when they have a specified time limit to complete it that everyone else suffers from? Does having less free time make you stupid? Is Jeff Bezos a brain-dented man as a result of being busy?
  - shermantanktop 1y ago
    I’m going to guess this is an economically comfortable person with lots of free time imagining that people less well off have none. To an approximation, that trend is surely true - poor people have less free time - but almost everyone can find time to do things they want to do. Would it skew results? Hard to say.
    - 1y ago
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
Its an modern open-source and collaborative resource of IQ style questions for research studies. IQ has a lot of flaws, not the least of which is its usage outside of academic research, as a measure of job aptitude and hiring potential (spoiling its utility as a metric since the questions can be trained... setting aside its dubious usefulness as a hiring tool anyway). It seems like ICAR is spending a-lot of effort to remain scientific, and i feel like a website like this goes against that by spoiling the test utility for future potential participants.
- fsckboy 1y ago
  >i feel like a website like this goes against that what do you mean "a website like this", HN? or the destination of the link at the top of this discussion? The link for this discussion goes to the test on the same site that you link to. Are you saying people need to make their way to that test from the front page of the site following particular breadcrumbs? that people from HN shouldn't go there till they're ready to participate in a scientific manner? i just don't understand your point...
  - aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
    These tests serve no purpose outside of academic studdies. Distributing them for people to self-score sully their scientific value, and perpetuate their use for unsound usecases.
    - fsckboy 1y ago
      so you're saying you have an agenda and you're pushing it. Psychologists are scientists and the replicability of IQ testing is extremely high and repeatedly confirmed. And despite how much psychosocially challenged nerds here like to complain about psychology, they are in good company: psychology itself is not normie opressors, psychologists are also psychosocially challenged nerds. before you say anything else, the statistical methods we use today across medical testing were first applied and developed to psychometric testing, so if you are going to attack that, you are attacking all of medical science.
hirvi74 1y ago
I still do not understand why we are wasting scientific resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence. After over a century of psychometric research in cognitive abilities and intelligence, what do we have to show for it? Whose life has actually improved for the better? Have the benefits from such research, if any, outweighed the amount of harm that has already been caused?
- bofadeez 1y ago
  Psychometrics has clear value. Cognitive ability predicts academic/job performance (Schmidt & Hunter 1998, Psych Bull), and standardized tests reliably forecast college outcomes (Kuncel, Hezlett & Ones 2004, Science). Conscientiousness adds further predictive power (Poropat 2009, Psych Bull). The science is robust. The issue is the discomfort it causes, not lack of benefit or predictive power.
  - shermantanktop 1y ago
    Intelligence testing is not widely used in employment hiring, despite many attempts. Why is that?
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      Of course it is[1]. Every single method used to screen a candidate is essentially testing for general mental ability. Being admitted to an Ivy League school is basically an IQ test. Interviews are basically IQ tests. Employers want to hire smart people. The fact that his is even a debate is crazy. [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006
      - rixed 1y ago
        Your definition of an IQ test seems to be so vague as to be meaningless. Last time I passed a job interview, on several rounds of interview not one was about general intelligence, or general knowledge, or general anything. It was about my ability to solve the kind of problems they were solving and I had some experience solving. Last time I failed a job interview it was because of a bad culture fit. I have not looked at the numbers, but I would suspect Ivy league admissions to be more correlated with wealth / geography than possibly anything else, but you probably square that with a belief that intelligence is hereditary as wealth is. IQ tests measure the ability to solve quickly some abstract problems in an exam-like situation. There is certainly a use case for that, but thinking it captures the whole of "cognitive ability" is like thinking that duolingo captures the whole of litterary. By the way, anytime one can't understand why $DEBATED_TOPIC is debatable should be an indication that one should switch to a slower though process.
avazhi 1y ago
"You achieved a total score of 50! This means that you are 70% higher than 13351 participants who have completed the test. The percentile score is calculated on-the-fly. This means that your percentile rank may change as more people complete the test." Not sure this was worth 65 minutes of my time. Would have liked to see whether whatever this version of the ICAR60 is is pegged to a standardized (IQ) test score. I'm assuming the 13,000 people who have also taken this are not representative of the wider pop.
- kirurik 1y ago
  The self-selection bias is definitely something to consider. I’d guess people who feel relatively confident in their intelligence are more likely to take the test.
  - zerr 1y ago
    Many highly intelligent people might decide that it is not worth their time though.
    - kirurik 1y ago
      True, and many not so intelligent people may overestimate their intelligence and do it. So maybe it does somehow end up being representative.
      - cutemonster 1y ago
        No it does very much not end up being representative. > not so intelligent people They generally won't ever know that the test exists.
mzajc 1y ago
Bear in mind that while most questions are language-agnostic, some require the knowledge of the English alphabet and definitions of uncommon English words.
webdoodle 1y ago
You might not want to give them your personal data. That's run by the same Cambridge that housed the Facebook scraping mechanism that was used by Cambridge Analytica to create personality profiles that got Trump elected in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Kogan_(scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Kogan_(scientist)
- geor9e 1y ago
  No, Cambridge Analytica and University of Cambridge are not the same Cambridge. Neither is Cambridge Chip Shop or the dozens of other businesses associated with Aleksandr Kogan with Cambridge in their name. It's a city in England.
  - rcxdude 1y ago
    University of Cambridge wasn't exactly completely clean in this, though, given Aleksandr Kogan was a member of the university at the time that he did this, though how much visibility the organisation had of what he was doing is not clear.
abdibrokhim 1y ago
Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later.
Joel_Mckay 1y ago
"Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later." Never have we seen a result so relatable to most users. =3
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kaiwenwang 1y ago
Pretty sure cognition is biological. I am of the opinion though various programs and college admissions accelerate a large portion of capable and able people to the top, they are not likely the best out of the entire population. I have frequently met (mostly young males) working in restaurants or supermarkets who would do exceedingly well if they had the right circumstances. Though personality (in terms of choosing to fight for an education) is important too: of those I offered to sit down and chat with (because their media landscape is mostly bad social media/conspiracies), none have taken me up on the offer. Whether due to their personality or my approach I do not know. https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/intelligence.shtml https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/intelligence.shtml https://kaiwenwang.com/writing/hypothetical-foldy-ears-as-an-indicator-of-intelligence https://kaiwenwang.com/writing/hypothetical-foldy-ears-as-an...
- caminanteblanco 1y ago
  From your article, which claims that intelligence is reflected in how "foldy" your ears are: >Imagine that you know that you aren’t so smart. It’s difficult to do well in class. Then you hear of this theory, go check your ears in the mirror, and find that your ears are not so foldy. Maybe they’d feel relief at understanding why things are the way they are. They could then endeavor to do better for their kids and the next generation armed with the knowledge of prenatal nutrition and its benefits What kind of crackpottery is this? >My personal opinion is that only people with these biologies are not Aristotle’s natural slaves, only able to live in the worlds of others. This is the kind of fatalist intelligence eugenics that makes me recoil.
  - kaiwenwang 1y ago
    This is developmental biology: to recognize both inherent and natural limits but also to recognize the ability of humans to adaptively improve their surroundings for the better. To say that everyone has the same level of skill and talent is harmful for people can clearly see their own ability yet cannot meet the expectations of society. If we believe everyone is the same, then it puts the culpability onto the individual to do well rather than society and government. Aristotle reflected that king does not beget king, nor does slave beget slave. He thought some to be worthy and capable despite their lowly position in society. It comes from the book Politics.
geor9e 1y ago
>You achieved a total score of 55! Oh no, I'm retarded >This means that you are 88.68% higher than 13391 participants who have completed the test. Hmm
- brookst 1y ago
  Well, that 88.68% higher than 13391 stat could still put you in the first decile if a few hundred thousand people have taken the test.
- griffzhowl 1y ago
  > >This means that you are 88.68% higher than 13391 participants who have completed the test. But this makes no sense doesn't it? It looks like the intention is "You're score is higher than 88.68% of 13391 participants who have completed the test." What it's literally saying is that 13391 participants got a score 88.68% lower than yours
abalaji 1y ago
57. I got a ton of shape rotation problems. Figured out a strategy for those: Focus on the 3 pronged shape. It is unique in all 4 orientations. You can use this to filter out bad rotations. Then use adjacencies to filer out the rest.
greazy 1y ago
I do not understand the shape problems. How are they solved? Does then pattern progress left to right, top to bottom? Or is that part of the riddle? For the dice questions, which rotation on the is being performed? I think that's part of the riddle, most rotations are impossible given the initial position. Either am an idiot or the solution to the riddles is something taught in school, which is something I've never been taught.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
hoofedear 1y ago
Got a score of 33, scoring 36.5% higher than 13456. No idea what that means but I no longer want to see another cube for at least a few weeks :P
camdroidw 1y ago
IQ scores perpetuate racism. True worth of a human being for a civilization is empathy and ability to cooperate. I wonder though if IQ has any impact on those
mikewarot 1y ago
What was with the fascination about rotated cubes? Were we supposed to have scratch paper? I didn't use any. I got 50, I guess that's good, especially because I'm ready for bed.
dave333 1y ago
I scored 54 and while the cube rotations are painful to do I was sure of all my responses and wonder which ones I got wrong. There was one I didn't know the answer: somebody liked 96 but not 45 and liked 540 but not 250 - can someone spoil that for me? There was one that had a trick in the answer order - which was 4 letters on from T which is X but in the choices 4 after T was Y which was what I checked initially.
- dave333 1y ago
  To SPOIL my own question now my brain has had time to work on it, the answer may be that the first digit is larger than the second digit for liked numbers and less for not liked, with the 0 digits irrelevant. So 9 > 6 and 4 < 5 and 5 > 4 and 2 < 5.
calini 1y ago
Don't ask me why but I did feel a tiny bit bummed out after getting 50 and being told I'm in the 68th percentile out of 13000~ people. It's worth considering who the other participants are, has this been mostly shared just among University of Cambridge students / staff (and HN readers now)?

106 points by indigodaddy 1y ago

huflungdung 1y ago

[dead]

iammjm 1y ago

Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later.

qgin 1y ago
Or is that message the first challenge of the test...

tux3 1y ago

The site seems overloaded at the moment, but if the URL is any indication, this seems to be the ICAR 60: https://icar-project.com/ https://icar-project.com/

thimkerbell 1y ago
Though the sample tests there are behind a login page.

jonplackett 1y ago

Man my cognitive abilities have tanked since I was in my 20s. I remember doing IQ tests and scoring 130+ I’m now 43 and other day I was looking up test papers for the 11+ (school entrance exams for 11 year olds) and thinking - damn this is HARD! Anyone else feel like they used to be so much quicker?

indigodaddy 1y ago
100% - used to be so much sharper with math and abstract math concepts in my 20s and 30s. Could be just a use it or lose it thing though?
- mettamage 1y ago
  In part. I notice when I do math again, it comes back.
BlackjackCF 1y ago
Do you think it’s really the fact that you were younger or just that you have a lot more responsibilities now? I’m in my early 30s and I definitely feel less sharp than in my 20s, but I also feel like my priorities have changed and I have more responsibilities at work and at home, so I have much less ability to just be able to do very long periods of focused studying/thinking like I used to in my 20s I asked my parents about this as they are both accomplished people and work in STEM/academia. They both mentioned feeling less sharp when they hit their mid-to-late 30s, which corresponds to… when they had kids. I know correlation isn’t causation, but seeing all of my coworkers who have young children now all mention they’ve had a marked decrease in mental acuity for work due to sleep deprivation (and having to prioritize their kids), I’m going to guess this is it. I also wonder if you just had a month to focus on refreshing what you learned in school how quickly it would all come back.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
  I think i would really enjoy a refresh course for university level maths and physics. But perhaps it would be better spent learning new maths and physics, which force a refresh on relevant prerequisite maths.
- thimkerbell 1y ago
  Is this a test whose abilities would survive being retaken periodically? Because having a baseline to compare against would let you know if your cranium was headed south, or if particular circumstances were contributing to that. (my 2¢: avoid sugar, fast food& other carbs, nitrite meats)
- tshaddox 1y ago
  I think it’s mostly about your level of interest in taking the test. This can obviously be influenced by your priorities and other responsibilities. Incidentally, I think IQ tests and similar “cognitive tests” are all mostly just measuring the subject’s interest in the test.
  - jonplackett 1y ago
    I think interest and concentration definitely play a part - but to say that’s all it measures is kinda crazy
mr90210 1y ago
You describe it as if it’s a bad thing. It’s your brain working as intended. Now, you can be strategic about staying sharp about topics that interest you.
- abstractbill 1y ago
  It’s your brain working as intended. As intended by whom?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jensson 1y ago
    Evolution.
    - jonplackett 1y ago
      It’s more like evolution just doesn’t give a shit about your cognitive abilities once you’ve reproduced…
      - Jensson 1y ago
        Most people help their kids, and are pretty old once the kids have moved out, so it matters for most of your life.
channel_t 1y ago
Not me. More than half of my 20s were mostly defined by working service industry jobs, hanging around with party kids, staying awake until the sun came up, and basically getting by doing the bare minimum for everything. It was probably the lowest point of my life cognitively. It wasn't really until sometime around my mid-30s that I started feeling pretty sharp and performing well on cognitive tests. I didn't grow up in an environment where there were any cultural expectations of achievement in anything. I had to find all of that on my own through a lot of trial and error. That being said, who knows where I would be today if a nice chunk of my 20s had been less dumb? I ruminate about it fairly often.
rmah 1y ago
I'm in my 50's and I feel smarter than I did in my 20's. I'm less energetic certainly, but I can focus better now. And I feel like my knowledge and understanding of mathematics, politics, economics, sciences, history, people, etc, is much better.
Joel_Mckay 1y ago
If you work with some piece of software everyday for 10+ years... I guarantee you the Jr programmers will have a look of terror as you bring them up to speed in a project. Speed is a function of practice, and not potential cognitive gifts. One just becomes hyper-specialized with age if you aren't careful, and don't explore new technology or hobbies. One Phd physicist I knew often said he was only an expert in Spoons, and while that probably wasn't really true... it did allude to the irrational competitiveness of the insecure. =3
Flere-Imsaho 1y ago
> I’m now 43 and other day I was looking up test papers for the 11+ (school entrance exams for 11 year olds) and thinking - damn this is HARD! Are you me? I've been helping my daughter study for the 11+, and some of the questions I really struggle with (I'm 44). However if you look up the answers and see how the answer is calculated/resolved, it does seem like it's a case of just learning the method. This does make me think that to pass the 11+ you basically need to pay for private tuition. We'll see how well my daughter does in a few weeks time (when the 11+ test is conducted). Likewise with a lot of these cognitive IQ tests, if you know the method or tricks you can basically pass no problem... but I'm not 100% sure it means you're "smarter" than everyone else.
binary132 1y ago
FWIW, after I started treating sleep apnea my mental sharpness increased a lot over the course of about a year. (I’m 39)
fuckaj 1y ago
[dead]
SamPatt 1y ago
IQ is age-adjusted. Without the adjustment, it drops quite a bit. Some cognitive abilities diminish more slowly with age (so-called crystallized intelligence), but unfortunately, fluid intelligence drops noticeably much earlier in life than most people would care to realize. You just need to lean into what you know instead of solving novel problems. Or be comfortable knowing that it'll take longer than it used to. Typically, you can still arrive at a solution if you could have before, but you'll need to put more work into it. Sometimes, a lot more work. - A homeschooling father helping with SAT prep

JCM9 1y ago

“Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later.” A Cognitive test struggling under load is ironic/amusing.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

geekamongus 1y ago

"The entire test will take about an hour to complete." Doesn't that skew things? That is a lot of time a lot of people don't have.

kulahan 1y ago
No, not in any way. Ability to be present for a test does not have any bearing whatsoever on cognitive ability, nor does any test on the planet account for whether or not the taker is present.
- tshaddox 1y ago
  I think the suggestion is that people who have less free time might be in more of a rush to complete the test, and that surely affects test results without indicating cognitive ability.
  - indigodaddy 1y ago
    I'd bet they don't consider incomplete tests, and most people I think would just peace out in ten or less questions vs continuing on either uninterested or rushed for time
  - kulahan 1y ago
    Why would they rush when they have a specified time limit to complete it that everyone else suffers from? Does having less free time make you stupid? Is Jeff Bezos a brain-dented man as a result of being busy?
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  I’m going to guess this is an economically comfortable person with lots of free time imagining that people less well off have none. To an approximation, that trend is surely true - poor people have less free time - but almost everyone can find time to do things they want to do. Would it skew results? Hard to say.
  - 1y ago

aDyslecticCrow 1y ago

Its an modern open-source and collaborative resource of IQ style questions for research studies. IQ has a lot of flaws, not the least of which is its usage outside of academic research, as a measure of job aptitude and hiring potential (spoiling its utility as a metric since the questions can be trained... setting aside its dubious usefulness as a hiring tool anyway). It seems like ICAR is spending a-lot of effort to remain scientific, and i feel like a website like this goes against that by spoiling the test utility for future potential participants.

fsckboy 1y ago
>i feel like a website like this goes against that what do you mean "a website like this", HN? or the destination of the link at the top of this discussion? The link for this discussion goes to the test on the same site that you link to. Are you saying people need to make their way to that test from the front page of the site following particular breadcrumbs? that people from HN shouldn't go there till they're ready to participate in a scientific manner? i just don't understand your point...
- aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
  These tests serve no purpose outside of academic studdies. Distributing them for people to self-score sully their scientific value, and perpetuate their use for unsound usecases.
  - fsckboy 1y ago
    so you're saying you have an agenda and you're pushing it. Psychologists are scientists and the replicability of IQ testing is extremely high and repeatedly confirmed. And despite how much psychosocially challenged nerds here like to complain about psychology, they are in good company: psychology itself is not normie opressors, psychologists are also psychosocially challenged nerds. before you say anything else, the statistical methods we use today across medical testing were first applied and developed to psychometric testing, so if you are going to attack that, you are attacking all of medical science.

hirvi74 1y ago

I still do not understand why we are wasting scientific resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence. After over a century of psychometric research in cognitive abilities and intelligence, what do we have to show for it? Whose life has actually improved for the better? Have the benefits from such research, if any, outweighed the amount of harm that has already been caused?

bofadeez 1y ago
Psychometrics has clear value. Cognitive ability predicts academic/job performance (Schmidt & Hunter 1998, Psych Bull), and standardized tests reliably forecast college outcomes (Kuncel, Hezlett & Ones 2004, Science). Conscientiousness adds further predictive power (Poropat 2009, Psych Bull). The science is robust. The issue is the discomfort it causes, not lack of benefit or predictive power.
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  Intelligence testing is not widely used in employment hiring, despite many attempts. Why is that?
  - bofadeez 1y ago
    Of course it is[1]. Every single method used to screen a candidate is essentially testing for general mental ability. Being admitted to an Ivy League school is basically an IQ test. Interviews are basically IQ tests. Employers want to hire smart people. The fact that his is even a debate is crazy. [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006
    - rixed 1y ago
      Your definition of an IQ test seems to be so vague as to be meaningless. Last time I passed a job interview, on several rounds of interview not one was about general intelligence, or general knowledge, or general anything. It was about my ability to solve the kind of problems they were solving and I had some experience solving. Last time I failed a job interview it was because of a bad culture fit. I have not looked at the numbers, but I would suspect Ivy league admissions to be more correlated with wealth / geography than possibly anything else, but you probably square that with a belief that intelligence is hereditary as wealth is. IQ tests measure the ability to solve quickly some abstract problems in an exam-like situation. There is certainly a use case for that, but thinking it captures the whole of "cognitive ability" is like thinking that duolingo captures the whole of litterary. By the way, anytime one can't understand why $DEBATED_TOPIC is debatable should be an indication that one should switch to a slower though process.

avazhi 1y ago

"You achieved a total score of 50! This means that you are 70% higher than 13351 participants who have completed the test. The percentile score is calculated on-the-fly. This means that your percentile rank may change as more people complete the test." Not sure this was worth 65 minutes of my time. Would have liked to see whether whatever this version of the ICAR60 is is pegged to a standardized (IQ) test score. I'm assuming the 13,000 people who have also taken this are not representative of the wider pop.

kirurik 1y ago
The self-selection bias is definitely something to consider. I’d guess people who feel relatively confident in their intelligence are more likely to take the test.
- zerr 1y ago
  Many highly intelligent people might decide that it is not worth their time though.
  - kirurik 1y ago
    True, and many not so intelligent people may overestimate their intelligence and do it. So maybe it does somehow end up being representative.
    - cutemonster 1y ago
      No it does very much not end up being representative. > not so intelligent people They generally won't ever know that the test exists.

mzajc 1y ago

Bear in mind that while most questions are language-agnostic, some require the knowledge of the English alphabet and definitions of uncommon English words.

webdoodle 1y ago

You might not want to give them your personal data. That's run by the same Cambridge that housed the Facebook scraping mechanism that was used by Cambridge Analytica to create personality profiles that got Trump elected in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Kogan_(scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Kogan_(scientist)

geor9e 1y ago
No, Cambridge Analytica and University of Cambridge are not the same Cambridge. Neither is Cambridge Chip Shop or the dozens of other businesses associated with Aleksandr Kogan with Cambridge in their name. It's a city in England.
- rcxdude 1y ago
  University of Cambridge wasn't exactly completely clean in this, though, given Aleksandr Kogan was a member of the university at the time that he did this, though how much visibility the organisation had of what he was doing is not clear.

abdibrokhim 1y ago

Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later.

Joel_Mckay 1y ago

"Sorry, this test has too many users right now. Please try again later." Never have we seen a result so relatable to most users. =3

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

kaiwenwang 1y ago

Pretty sure cognition is biological. I am of the opinion though various programs and college admissions accelerate a large portion of capable and able people to the top, they are not likely the best out of the entire population. I have frequently met (mostly young males) working in restaurants or supermarkets who would do exceedingly well if they had the right circumstances. Though personality (in terms of choosing to fight for an education) is important too: of those I offered to sit down and chat with (because their media landscape is mostly bad social media/conspiracies), none have taken me up on the offer. Whether due to their personality or my approach I do not know. https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/intelligence.shtml https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/intelligence.shtml https://kaiwenwang.com/writing/hypothetical-foldy-ears-as-an-indicator-of-intelligence https://kaiwenwang.com/writing/hypothetical-foldy-ears-as-an...

caminanteblanco 1y ago
From your article, which claims that intelligence is reflected in how "foldy" your ears are: >Imagine that you know that you aren’t so smart. It’s difficult to do well in class. Then you hear of this theory, go check your ears in the mirror, and find that your ears are not so foldy. Maybe they’d feel relief at understanding why things are the way they are. They could then endeavor to do better for their kids and the next generation armed with the knowledge of prenatal nutrition and its benefits What kind of crackpottery is this? >My personal opinion is that only people with these biologies are not Aristotle’s natural slaves, only able to live in the worlds of others. This is the kind of fatalist intelligence eugenics that makes me recoil.
- kaiwenwang 1y ago
  This is developmental biology: to recognize both inherent and natural limits but also to recognize the ability of humans to adaptively improve their surroundings for the better. To say that everyone has the same level of skill and talent is harmful for people can clearly see their own ability yet cannot meet the expectations of society. If we believe everyone is the same, then it puts the culpability onto the individual to do well rather than society and government. Aristotle reflected that king does not beget king, nor does slave beget slave. He thought some to be worthy and capable despite their lowly position in society. It comes from the book Politics.

geor9e 1y ago

>You achieved a total score of 55! Oh no, I'm retarded >This means that you are 88.68% higher than 13391 participants who have completed the test. Hmm

brookst 1y ago
Well, that 88.68% higher than 13391 stat could still put you in the first decile if a few hundred thousand people have taken the test.
griffzhowl 1y ago
> >This means that you are 88.68% higher than 13391 participants who have completed the test. But this makes no sense doesn't it? It looks like the intention is "You're score is higher than 88.68% of 13391 participants who have completed the test." What it's literally saying is that 13391 participants got a score 88.68% lower than yours

abalaji 1y ago

57. I got a ton of shape rotation problems. Figured out a strategy for those: Focus on the 3 pronged shape. It is unique in all 4 orientations. You can use this to filter out bad rotations. Then use adjacencies to filer out the rest.

greazy 1y ago

I do not understand the shape problems. How are they solved? Does then pattern progress left to right, top to bottom? Or is that part of the riddle? For the dice questions, which rotation on the is being performed? I think that's part of the riddle, most rotations are impossible given the initial position. Either am an idiot or the solution to the riddles is something taught in school, which is something I've never been taught.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

hoofedear 1y ago

Got a score of 33, scoring 36.5% higher than 13456. No idea what that means but I no longer want to see another cube for at least a few weeks :P

camdroidw 1y ago

IQ scores perpetuate racism. True worth of a human being for a civilization is empathy and ability to cooperate. I wonder though if IQ has any impact on those

mikewarot 1y ago

What was with the fascination about rotated cubes? Were we supposed to have scratch paper? I didn't use any. I got 50, I guess that's good, especially because I'm ready for bed.

dave333 1y ago

I scored 54 and while the cube rotations are painful to do I was sure of all my responses and wonder which ones I got wrong. There was one I didn't know the answer: somebody liked 96 but not 45 and liked 540 but not 250 - can someone spoil that for me? There was one that had a trick in the answer order - which was 4 letters on from T which is X but in the choices 4 after T was Y which was what I checked initially.

dave333 1y ago
To SPOIL my own question now my brain has had time to work on it, the answer may be that the first digit is larger than the second digit for liked numbers and less for not liked, with the 0 digits irrelevant. So 9 > 6 and 4 < 5 and 5 > 4 and 2 < 5.

calini 1y ago

Don't ask me why but I did feel a tiny bit bummed out after getting 50 and being told I'm in the 68th percentile out of 13000~ people. It's worth considering who the other participants are, has this been mostly shared just among University of Cambridge students / staff (and HN readers now)?