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"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.
by 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 agoNo, 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 agoI 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 agoI'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 agoWhy 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 agoI’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.
- kulahan 1y agoNope, I’m not thinking about their test in any way. I’m explaining that it’s explicitly unrelated to your cognitive ability. Getting a more convenient job does not boost your brain. I’m going to guess you’re obsessed with the plight of those you perceive to be “under” you. I mean, they’re poor - there’s NO WAY they’re doing well on the test right!? Such an obnoxious point of view. Of COURSE your job has no causative effect on your natural cognitive ability. What a ridiculous way to try and look down on the poor.
- shermantanktop 1y agoI think you took my comment the wrong way. I was suggesting the opposite.
- kulahan 1y agoYou’re right, I completely misread it, thank you for correcting me
- IshKebab 1y ago> Ability to be present for a test does not have any bearing whatsoever on cognitive ability The irony of making such a big mistake while discussing cognitive ability...
- kulahan 1y agoPlease tell me how having a free period in your schedule causally makes you smarter.
- jon_adler 1y agoA smarter approach would be to run an experiment and look at what the data says. Just because you cannot think of any doesn’t make it so.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- IshKebab 1y agoIt doesn't. The fact that the IQ test takes a lot of time means that generally only people who want validation of their high IQ will be motivated enough to take the test. "Test your fitness with this 1 hour workout! ... Hmm our totally unbiased test shows that everyone is really fit." See? Unbiased sampling is really hard but an hour long test means you're not even trying. (Which tbf they might not be.)
- brookst 1y ago“Test your mountain climbing ability by summiting K2!” Hey wow turns out 70% of the population can summit K2!
- kulahan 1y agoThat’s true of every test, right? Is there a single test where unmotivated people do well? And an hour is a pretty reasonable ask of most people. How long do you think studies usually take?
- geor9e 1y agoTo map the raw score out of 60 to a population (normalize) you would need to control for biases like free time. For example, with the cooperation of institutions, it could officially replace an hour of school or work. You can look up such normalization tables for this test.
- griffzhowl 1y agoThere's no time limit on the test either, so people could take arbitrarily long. But it seems from what's written at the start that what they're looking for is correlations between the different types of questions, rather than scores across people