IQ

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Hello,

I have been told I will be doing an IQ test soon, I was just wondering if anybody could inform me on what results are below average/average/above average etc

Thanks

Depends on the test, really, each test is unique, but a general guideline is as follows:

below 70 - mentally handicapped

100 - average

120 - above average

130 - gifted

Here is a little secret on taking an IQ test. Don't be afraid to skip questions. if a question doesn't jump out at you in about 5 seconds, skip to the next one. You can always go back to it later. Remember that you are being timed so don't waste time on a being stuck on a hard problem when you could be answering several easy ones in the same time frame. Remember that all the question have the same value. So the more you can answer correctly. The higher your score.

I wasn't allowed to do that on the actual IQ test -- for all but one of the subtests I had to say or point to my answers rather than writing anything down. If I couldn't get a question the neuropsychologist ended the subtest.

Not necessarily. I took the WAIS-IV, which is the standard test given to people without obvious receptive communication difficulties (if you have them and it's obvious, you may be given the Raven matrices, which is a written test). If I said I didn't know the answer to a problem, we moved to the next one, and depending on the subtest I was doing (verbal, digit span, block design etc.) I was allowed between two and three wrong or skipped answers before my score for that subtest was capped and we moved on to the next one. If you say, "I don't know" to the first problem that gives you any trouble, you'll wind up with a very low score.

The WAIS tests have always had an average score between 90 and 109, with a standard deviation of 15. 110-119 is considered "bright average", 120-129 is "superior", 130-144 is "gifted", 145-159 is "highly gifted", 160-179 is "extremely gifted" and anything above 179 is "profoundly gifted". 80-89 is "low average", 70-79 is "borderline mental retardation" and anything below 69 is "mental retardation" with IQs below 20 considered "profoundly mentally ret*d", which given the fact that you're typing on a message board, you cannot possibly be.

Just take it easy and have fun with the puzzles.

It doesn't matter what you get, really. There can be a 30 point swing depending upon the mood you're in or what kind of day you're having.

The last time I took an IQ test, I was told that there was such a wide disparity between my verbal and non-verbal results that the test was basically meaningless. The psychologist said that in my daily life, I am probably using the part of my brain devoted to verbal processing to solve problems for which most people use the non-verbal parts of their brain. This resulted in a provisional diagnosis of NLD.
I've been told that disparities on one side of the brain or another are not uncommon among those of us on the spectrum.

Don't stress about it.

I paid an educational psychologist $215.00 to find out my overall IQ score was "inconclusive" based on the huge gap between my verbal and visual IQ.

Don't be surprised if you have a uneven profile of skills. That seems to be pretty normal for autistics. Good luck!

Thanks for your replies. I took the test and got 125.

Although I'm not sure I honestly believe it, I thought I would get lower since I basically almost fail to function properly on a daily basis.

I enjoyed taking my test although it was a long time ago. One of the questions was really complex and after the test I asked for a copy because in the end I failed to answer it. I ended up walking around with the question on my mind for a couple of days until I realized the answer.

Don't feel bad - there are plenty of people with much higher IQs that DO fail to function properly on a daily basis. No "almost" about it.

Regarding understanding IQ scores, i took the Odis Lennin IQ test in grade school and got the score of "98th percentile." I was told I was gifted and invited to attend a gifted program (which my father wouldn't let me attend much to my dismay). What does a top 2 percentile on the O. L. equate to numerically?

In my experience an individuals IQ varies from day to day.
In one test I took I scored 113. In another I took a few days later I scored 148.

Academic intelligence and daily functioning skills are not the same thing. Look at Kim Peak; he had a more impressive vault of knowledge than almost anyone in the world, yet was classed as "mentally ret*d" and was still taken care of by his father. It's the same reason most NTs with an IQ of 100 can take care of themselves just fine, but don't have the same knowledge base as many aspies.

It is not the IQ, that varies that much. If you are tired, stressed, worried or generally tense, - your resources are tied in coping , and you may score markedly lower than on good days. That is why Mensa give you three chances.

It's completely possible to be academically smart and disabled. Many people don't believe it, but it's true. One of the smartest people I know has such severe dyslexia that she can barely read at all. That's just the way it goes--you're really good at some things, really bad at others. I scored well on the IQ test, too, but I don't function much better than you would expect from someone with a mild intellectual disability--capable of living alone, but just barely, and needing help to maintain even that.

The trouble with being "smart", and people knowing it, is that they start to think that this means you don't need any help. And then you get left behind, and they think you are lazy. When, in reality, you can't do whatever it is that you're not doing.

Smart isn't one thing that you either are or aren't. IQ tests don't test how good you are at taking care of yourself. They correlate relatively well with academics, but there are a lot of things to life that you don't learn in school.

The things the IQ test measures are simple tasks that use abilities like thinking about words or shapes or numbers. It doesn't measure your ability to remember to pay a bill, your ability to negotiate with a repairman, your ability to cook your dinner, or your ability to deal with a job interview. From your IQ test result, I would expect you to be someone for whom learning academic subjects is relatively easy, at least if you are interested and in an environment where you can concentrate and learn things in your own way. And yet even then, there are probably parts of school that are quite difficult for you, depending on your skill set. For me, it's group work and organizing my efforts at completing major projects.

As more than one of my psychology professors have said, "Your IQ is a measure of how good you are at IQ tests." That's pretty much it. The relationship between IQ results and performance on a task is stronger for some tasks than others, of course, but IQ tests can only truly measure how good you are at those particular sub-tests on that particular day. And the farther away a task is from the ones you did on the IQ test, the less your IQ result has to say about how good you'll likely be at completing it.

Don't let them put you in a box labeled with your IQ score. Once they put you in that box, they like to seal it up and stamp it with some kind of standardized treatment plan that's likely to be totally inappropriate for your actual needs.