Most people I know probably think I'm smart enough, yet I still didn't get the right answers to all the test questions posed in the article. I started to wonde

Most people I know probably think I'm smart enough, yet I still didn't get the right answers to all the test questions posed in the article. I started to wonder how come. One question giving me no trouble at all was item 5. It was obvious to me that the problem was one I often encounter, deciphering the ratios is a skill developed reading countless medical research reports. After a while it seems natural, it's about something salient in my universe. I'm guessing the item about marital status of individuals, one looking at another, doesn't align with the salience of usual experience. In normal life we have to be sensitive to the context, and in the question that context was deliberately stripped away. It reduces to a purely abstract notion whereas people, even intelligent ones, really want to know "is she married or not". That information is lacking hence the "C" response. Some of the other questions are kind of tricky unless one is familiar with the statistical domain they arrive from. Sure there's a logic involved, but learning how to think in those logical terms is unlikely to occur unless it's germane to the individual. If someone I cared about tested positive for the disease (#4), you bet I'd have good reason to figure out the odds. Otherwise, probably not. The motivational aspect is highly relevant and in many cases the "missing link" between intelligence and worse than expected performance.