I did not make an apology because, if your feelings are hurt when I say utterly ridiculous things, you have a problem, not me. You might as well be angry if I accused Americans of wearing polka dots after Labour Day or Mormons of eating babies; what I said was so totally over the top that anybody should be able to recognise it as a joke and respond in kind. I even included a smiley in the second one, to guide the hard of thinking. If this makes you angry - oh well. What you basically accomplish here is to prove my jokes not so far from the truth after all.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Glenn, I don't see what you mean about signal to noise in this instance. With the number of questions in the test I took, I don't see how one or two guessed answers can make much of a difference to the final score. And even five standard deviations cannot be so unusual when you consider the number of IQ tests given every year - remember that a lot of armed forces give one to every recruit. So there should be enough high scores to form a fairly reliable baseline, you don't have to extrapolate a fit to the middle range.
I can't find a z distribution chart that goes above 3, so I don't really know what kind of numbers we're talking about, but just look at the shape of the curve. At 5 sigma, the curve is so close to the asymptote that the range of possible grades is way more than 1. Add to that the standard error of measurement, say you paused 1/10 of a second before giving an answer, even though it came into your mind earlier, or vice versa, because you were having a good day, or if the psychometrist clicked the stopwatch 1/10 of a second faster, it would affect the score by a substantial amount.
This is just an example, but I wouldn't trust any IQ results that didn't give the score as "between 170 and 180" or "between 173 and 183," or some such. Giving a range it would indicate that they knew something about basic assessment.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:I did not make an apology because, if your feelings are hurt when I say utterly ridiculous things, you have a problem, not me.
KoM, compassion is something that we are sent here to learn. If you say something that offends another person, you should swallow your pride and issue a proper appology, not a "I-already-appologized-so-screw-you" mentality. I'm rapidly loosing respect for you.
A joke is only a joke as long as people are laughing and the laughing stopped at the top of the second page.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
One of the things you learn when you're really smart and are surrounded by really smart people is how little that really means.
What I do on Hatrack, most of the people here can do, yourself included Chungwa. If you're not as smart as me, it might be harder for you and take you longer, but it's not like it's a whole different order of things.
It's persepctive and motivation more than anything else. The biggest key is seeking out complexity and being willing to look at an issue from a bunch of different sides. From what I've seen, these are not strongly correlated to intelligence, nor is a willingness to put out effort in educating yourself.
Most everyone has the potential in them to say and think interesting and intelligent things. One of the things you can do to sabotage this potential is to think things like "Wow, these people are too smart for me." It's important ot have a good grasp on your limitations, but always have faith in your potential and in your ability to improve. There's no race here and it's not a contest. There's no great punishment for trying and failing.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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scottneb, what the devil makes you think the respect of random Internet strangers is important to me? I care about the respect of my family, girlfriend, co-workers, and friends, in that approximate order.
Also, you apparently did not read my post very closely. I did not say 'I apologised already so screw you', I said 'You're being absurdly over-sensitive and I do not feel an apology is called for.' If you want to read a 'screw you' into that, by all means feel free.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
KoM, It's only somewhat about the respect of random strangers. You look like a fool here. You often look like a fool. When you say things, they are taken in the context of "Here's what a foolish jerk has to say." If you're okay with that, then there you go. But you're one of the people I'm amazed people still take seriously enough to get offended by.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: I can't find a z distribution chart that goes above 3, so I don't really know what kind of numbers we're talking about, but just look at the shape of the curve. At 5 sigma, the curve is so close to the asymptote that the range of possible grades is way more than 1. Add to that the standard error of measurement, say you paused 1/10 of a second before giving an answer, even though it came into your mind earlier, or vice versa, because you were having a good day, or if the psychometrist clicked the stopwatch 1/10 of a second faster, it would affect the score by a substantial amount.
This is just an example, but I wouldn't trust any IQ results that didn't give the score as "between 170 and 180" or "between 173 and 183," or some such. Giving a range it would indicate that they knew something about basic assessment. [/QB]
One-tenth of a second? Are we talking about the same kind of IQ test? I took the standard Mensa one, with (IIRC) two hours to answer a big set of logic and sequence problems, with some vocabulary thrown in, unless I'm thinking of the one I took for the Army. One-tenth of a second isn't even enough to cross out an answer, much less make a difference to the thought process.
Also, the actual number of questions you get right has a fairly small uncertainty, in that there are hundreds of the things. The average, whatever it happens to be in a given year, is fixed at 100, the standard deviation is well defined, and then you just have to figure out how many questions off the average you are, and divide by sigma. The only real uncertainty is in the number of questions got right, which should be on the order of half a percent, which kind of derails my train of thought because it means you are absolutely right. My bad.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I interact with many people I don't really care about. Hatrack can be relied on for an interesting discussion; whether I gain or lose any respect in those discussions is really rather beside the point.
'Mentality'? I do not see where it has any relevance whether you were speaking of my posts or my state of mind; in either case, you were wrong, I was not in 'already-apologised'-mode.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:I like when you measure something, then that's what it is. You shouldn't be able to measure it again 2 years later and get a different result.
Are you the same height now as you were five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago? Measure it again and see. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I can't imagine KoM's shtick is still taken seriously enough for anyone to take offense.
I haven't been active that long, but I know if I come into a thread that he's in, he will inevitably make some disparaging remarks about americans, then sit back and watch the fireworks. When my brother used to do that when we were little, I quickly learned that if I didn't take the bait, he couldn't get any satisfaction out of it.
Why haven't people here learned the same thing?
By the way, KoM, your statement that you don't care about 'random internet strangers' is obvious BS. If you're a jerk here, you're a jerk in real life. The type of person you are can be gauged by how you treat people. Not just how you treat your peers, or your equals, but how you treat everyone you come into contact with. Nothing wrong with bucking the status quo, but you turn most discussions you're in into 'I know you are but what am I?' I would bet good money that your real life relationships closely mirror your hatrack relationships. And it really takes so little effort to think before speaking.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote: the war in Iraq...is..against gay marriage...antidisestablishmentarianism
Change the tense to make more sense (DAMN! ANOTHER rhyme!)
"Antidisestablishmentarianistically speaking, I believe that the war in Iraq is opposed to gay marriage."
Now, let's make a more correct sentence:
"Antidisestablishmentarianism has little - if anything - to do with gay marriage or the war in Iraq."
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Wups, I missed an order of magnitude in that calculation - make it a few percent. Glenn's still right, in fact even more so.
JT, you are wrong, but I see where you wouldn't take my word for it, so I'll just let it go at that.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
"Are we talking about the same kind of IQ test? I took the standard Mensa one,"
Nope, we're not talking about the same test. IQ tests have to be administered by a psychometrist, and processing speed is a definite factor. Also memory, which someone here mentioned, by memorizing strings of numbers or letters spoken verbally, and repeated back to the tester.
The test also changes depending on your answers, so different responses will send you down different branches of a tree diagram, so to speak. The tester has to have pretty good training to recognize some of the changes, so I understand. I'm not trained, by the way, but it comes up in various teaching courses.
I imagine that a computer porgram would increase reliability, especially on timing, but the only one I know of is the tickle one, and it's a farce to get information out of you.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Yeah, that's the one I took. The only thing I remember is memorizing a string of numbers. I think it went up to like 11 or 13 of them. It was a lot more of putting together timed puzzles than SAT type questions.
And, KoM, US armed forces don't take an IQ test. The military here has a special aptitude exam they give all entrants.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I took the psychometrist administered one too. I did really well on the string of numbers, I remember, because as soon as she called them out, I mentally grouped them in groups of three, and then just repeated them back, almost in a sing-song pattern. It worked very well, I'm sure that's one reason I got a decent score.
I don't know what my score was, but it was apprently enought to garner me some attention from the school and get me put into all kinds of different programs for gifted students.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I blew the ASVAB out of the water. The recruiters took the book of jobs for the Air Force, gave it to me and said, "pick whatever you want."
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I was staggered to find that the test only went up to 99. 99 is the highest score, and I don't get why.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I believe that standardized tests are always a percentile scale (0–99). A score of 99 does not mean you got 99 percent right; it means you scored in the top 1 percent of everyone who took the test.
I discovered this ugly, ego-shattering truth in first grade. I got a score of 99 on a test, and I complained to my mom that they had made a mistake and that I knew I had gotten them all right. She managed to explain it to me without laughing even once.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I know what percentile means, I just didn't think the ASVAB was a standardized test.
Plus, usually on a standardized test, you get your score and your percentile, they aren't just combined.
That way you have a hard number that is your score, and you know how you did compared to others who took the same exam at the same time.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
You said that you were staggered by the score cap of 99 and didn't get why it would be that way. I took that to mean that you didn't know about the percentile system.
And are you sure they didn't give you both scores on the ASVAB? It was six or seven years ago that I took it, so I don't remember too accurately. I do remember getting percentile scores for each gender, though. If I had been a girl, I would've had a pretty good score for mechanical aptitude. As a boy, I didn't do so hot in that area.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
In a percentile you can't get 100 because you would have to do better than 100% of the test takers, and you are one of them. You can't do better than yourself.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
If anyone cares, Here's something about what IQs are "supposed" to mean, ie. What's considered normal, gifted, genius, etc.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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