Doesn't it seem more plausible that it is your IQ _score_ that is increasing by 10 to 20 pointes and not your "general intelligence" (assuming that there is such a thing.) If it were the case that overall intelligence could be increased so much by practicing the specific types of problems common to IQ tests, getting smarter would be a simple matter of studying I.Q. tests and doing so would be part of all school curricula. This seems a bit far fetched to me.

It seems more likely that studying I.Q. tests would add slightly to the myriad experiences that a given person has throughout their lives (in addition to any genetic predisposition they might have) and, simply, broaden their world a bit. The increase, in score, would be dispropotionate to actual increase in "general intelligence" (assuming that exists) because of one's familliatity with the types of problems on such tests. Someone actively taking up chess, or painting, or advanced knitting, or crossword puzzles, would have a similar "broadening" of expereince, but would not, I think, show a similar increase in I.Q. _score_ to the person who devoted themselves to studying I.Q. test puzzles. So, the I.Q. test fails.

I think what advocates of I.Q. tests are trying to do is take the very messy realm of human intelligence(s), memory, achievement and success and shoehorn it into a tiny managable box. This might make categorizing people easier, but it strikes me as precisely the opposite of the "intelligent" thing to do- that is, it "dumbs down" the study of the complex human mind, reducing it all to a single number.

Those are just the sort of things I've seen in IQ tests. Other things I've seen included myraid forms of analogies (verbal and visual), number sequences (very popular), spatial reasoning tests (figure rotation), complete the visual series puzzles (three or four pictures, figure the pattern and complete it) and various forms of riddles. In each of these types, there are only so many ways people have come up with to form a interesting pattern for the prospective I.Q. Test taker to puzzle out.

Just as most tactics in chess can be broken down into the fork, double attack, skewer, back rank threat, x-ray attack, clearance, diversion etc,. types, in my experience, I.Q. test puzzles can too.

When faced with a number sequence puzzle, for instance, I instantly run through the gamut of possibilities that I have encountered in the past (fibonacci sequences, squares, alphabetical sequence, etc,.) and usually hit upon the right one pretty quickly because there are only so many types. Note that my speed, and therefore my I.Q. score, is not due to any great insight on my part, but due to the fact that I've seen these sorts of things a dozen times before and am familliar with the cute tricks the puzzle makers try to play on us. Someone new to these puzzles would not be so trained and would invariably perform more slowly than I, even if that person were particuarly sharp. This familiarity speeds up my quest even when the "trick" is new to me because it allows me to quickly dismiss other, more shopworn, possibilities and get on to more creative thinking.

First of all, Kiyosaki claims that high IQ is, from a very large part, the ability to make fine distinctions about the subjects. The high ability to classify things as being "same" or "distinct" (and why, I guess) -- 'A' is like 'B' but unlike 'C' -- is to him the sign of an high IQ in a particular area. Of course, from this, it is just an obvious corollary to conscientiously develop home-brewed classification schemes for each area where one wants to increase own intellectual performance.

What do we mean by “understanding” something? We can imagine this complicated array of moving things which constitutes “the world” is something like a great chess game being played by the gods, and we are observers of the game. We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to some of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics. Even if we knew every rule, however, we might not be able to understand why a particular move is made in the game, merely because it is too complicated and our minds are limited. If you play chess you must know that it is easy to learn all the rules, and yet it is often very hard to select the best move or to understand why a player moves as he does. So it is in nature, only much more so; but we may be able to at least find all the rules. Actually, we do not have all the rules now. (Every once in a while something like castling is going on that we still do not understand.) Aside from not knowing all the rules, what we really can explain in terms of those rules is very limited, because almost all situations are so enormously complicated that we cannot follow the plays of the game using the rules, much less tell what is going to happen next. We must, therefore, limit ourselves to the more basic questions of the rules of the game. If we know the rules, we consider that we “understand” the world....

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"Six Easy Pieces" at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...

"Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time" by Richard Feynman at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...

More on Richard Feynman:

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laure...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richar...

http://www.feynman.com/

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

I do think that loving and supportive spouses are often among the unsung heroes and heroines of the human race!

Two important problems here the main one being that online tests are complete garbage. I've taken online IQ tests intentionally getting all the questions wrong only to have them give me an IQ of 135. The reason for this is that 135 is the standard 'genius' level and they're normally selling personality tests and using their 'IQ' test as a marketing tool to make people feel smart so they buy their products.

The only accurate and serious IQ test are administered by professionals and you'll generally have to pay several hundred dollars to take one. If you'd like to take a serious IQ test I'd recommend contacting Mensa and seeing when they can come to your area for testing.

The second myth is that IQ changes over time. The truth is that IQs are remarkably consistent throughout life and it's very unlikely your brothers IQ will change at all. The reason IQ tests take age into account is exactly for this purpose - to make the results applicable long term.

IQ tests are *not* a measure of intelligent. They're simply a measure of certain kinds of skills and abilities that make certain types of learning easier. They are designed with the idea that these skills are easily testable and universal regardless of culture and language issues - although those factors have to be accounted for when testing individuals.

On another note claiming Einstein was bad at math is absolutely ridiculous. He has a very deep and sound understanding of many higher level math concepts long before the rest of the physics community caught up. It's very possible that he did poorly with arithmetic and other simply manipulations but he had a very high level understanding into the nature of high level algebraic systems axiomatic structures and the true power of abstraction.

Personally I struggled in math class for many years and to this day still need a calculator for elementary multiplcations (8X7 alway gets me). That being said - I have a masters degree in Math because indeed math doesn't have anything to do with manipulating numbers or equations beyond a trivial level but relies more on an understanding of how to distill basic principles to model a paticular situation and derive conclusive rational results based on those ideas.

The common recounting of Einstein's epiphany while riding the bus and thinking about what it would be like to ride on a beam of light is a perfect example of high level mathematical thinking. He found a simple fact from physics and treated it as an axiom for building his model of the universe and then investigated the mathematical tools available to him to flesh that theory out. Essentially everything he discovered came from this simple fact and then applying old results mathamaticians had discovered hundreds of years before him to his new model of the universe.

I am pretty sure he had decided to marry her shortly before she died (against his family's wishes too I think) even though (or probably because) her condition was by that time terminal.

All this info is in "What do you care what other people think?!".

<Richard Brain: Anybody know what the deal is with Einstein's hair?> I think he had the same hair stylist as John Belushi. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B... But in this post-SuperCuts phase of human history, there's just no excuse for this kind of thing. http://www.supercuts.com/

(: ♗B :)

Your thick 1989 hair is appropriate for a young man, but you have to get rid of that look before you reach 50 or so or else you might get this effect:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugsho...