What IQ test did they use in the 80s to identify gifted kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was in MCPS in mid-80s and took it and did get into the gifted program. It was the WISC-R. I also used it to join Mensa.

OP - how did you find the record of it? Mensa used your childhood test to get in even recently?

Also… how do you like the Mensa activities and people?

Fun fact. My BIL, who is lazy and unemployed but really funny, was bragging about winning 1K games of solitaire and about his "giftedness" and that's why he couldnt' stand to work. So I wondered. Turns out you can use other tests to get into to MENSA. I took the GRE and my score easily got me in (back in the day when it was 3 parts, not 2). aNd I know how to earn money in the real world so I"m pretty sure I'm smarter than he is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in NY, not here, in the 80's, and we didn't have any gifted test or anything called gifted education. I think they still don't. Gifted programs here are absurd and almost none of the kids are remotely gifted.

My kids are in the "gifted" program and in my opinion are not gifted just very smart. But that is what the current "gifted" programs are designed for. When they are pulling 15-20% of kids, they know that they are not all gifted. And frankly, if gen ed wasn't so watered down, parents wouldn't be so motivated to get their kids into "gifted" education. I certainly don't care if you call it gifted. You could just call it advanced or accelerated or whatever.

Yes. This is how I grew up. And now that I live in a place where such tracking has disappeared, I miss it for my kids. Their school is too watered down until APs appear around 10th grade.

It can often be better to be a high-side of normal IQ person with a winning personality than a smarter person who can't convince such people that they aren't thinking about things properly. Ask me how I know...

[Anonymous]

I was given the WISC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does this test, which I took in 1893-1984, relate to the test used by MENSA?

🤡

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was in MCPS in mid-80s and took it and did get into the gifted program. It was the WISC-R. I also used it to join Mensa.

Really? How did your parents get the scores? I was in the gifted program but I don’t think it was Mensa levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a kid I remember taking the Iowa Assessment in the mid-late 80s, which is not an IQ test, but more like the academic standards assessments my kids do in APS.

In college in the late 90s I took a psych seminar about IQ testing and we used Ravens Advances Matrices.

I also remember taking the Iowa test of basic skills. I think we also took the California Achievement Test. So many bubbles to fill in!

[Anonymous]

I’m a genius

[Anonymous]

I was in a room alone. After I took the test the tester straight up told me my score. I went back after graduation and verified it in my files. Very unprofessional of him, by the way.

[Anonymous]

There were no gifted programs in Massachusetts public schools. And yet they always were on top of the list of states with the best public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in NY, not here, in the 80's, and we didn't have any gifted test or anything called gifted education. I think they still don't. Gifted programs here are absurd and almost none of the kids are remotely gifted.

My kids are in the "gifted" program and in my opinion are not gifted just very smart. But that is what the current "gifted" programs are designed for. When they are pulling 15-20% of kids, they know that they are not all gifted. And frankly, if gen ed wasn't so watered down, parents wouldn't be so motivated to get their kids into "gifted" education. I certainly don't care if you call it gifted. You could just call it advanced or accelerated or whatever.

99% of the kids in the program are academically very smart but not in the gifted range. Still not bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in NY, not here, in the 80's, and we didn't have any gifted test or anything called gifted education. I think they still don't. Gifted programs here are absurd and almost none of the kids are remotely gifted.

False. All publics did testing at many levels.

How would you know that? In NYC the gifted programs have been off and on over the decades. I don’t know about upstate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it was 140 at my Louisiana school b/c there was no money for differentiation. I didn't make the cut but given both my kids have IQs in the low 130s, I suspect mine is there as well.

Are you saying you had to have an IQ test score over 140? In Louisiana? There’s no way you could fill a classroom if that were the criteria anywhere. By definition gifted would be over 140 but that’s only about 0.004% of the population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in NY, not here, in the 80's, and we didn't have any gifted test or anything called gifted education. I think they still don't. Gifted programs here are absurd and almost none of the kids are remotely gifted.

False. All publics did testing at many levels.

How would you know that? In NYC the gifted programs have been off and on over the decades. I don’t know about upstate.

I’m from upstate — no IQ testing at my public school in the 80s and 90s. We didn’t have a “gifted” program; starting in middle school, they tracked kids into honours or non-honours for all subjects. If you finished the school offering for a subject, you could take classes at the private university in our town.

So yeah. Not all publics did testing at many levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it was 140 at my Louisiana school b/c there was no money for differentiation. I didn't make the cut but given both my kids have IQs in the low 130s, I suspect mine is there as well.

Are you saying you had to have an IQ test score over 140? In Louisiana? There’s no way you could fill a classroom if that were the criteria anywhere. By definition gifted would be over 140 but that’s only about 0.004% of the population.

Isn’t that PP’s point? They couldn’t afford to run a gifted program so they set the bar so high they wouldn’t have to?

[Anonymous]

My mom claims my IQ as tested in the 1980s when I was in 2nd grade was above 140. I don’t believe it at all. I’m smart but not gifted. My dh is much much smarter than I am.