Does preparation increase IQ or is IQ fixed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand. Kids that prep like mad for the SAT entrance exams and even jack their scores up 200 points and get into Harvard will end up at this school and not be able to keep up with classmates? Kids who prep for their magnet entrance exams, Catholic school exams, SSAT with outstanding results will have artificial (unnatural and performance-enhanced) scores and will be doomed when they attend their favorite Big 3 school? Kids who play with puzzles, analogy word games, number sense, puzzles and raven-like exercises will fall on their faces in your fine private schools loaded with the brightest of the intelligensia due to artificial and performance-enhanced scores? Many performance-enhanced Asian Americans and other immigrants are stilling kicking much butt in our fancy private schools. On the contrary, I don't see these kids failing to keep. It is your kids that can't keep up. the ones with natural intelligence and no performance. Those are my observations.

I will not even comment on your NFL analogy and spare you.

Of course all those kids applying to Harvard prep for the SAT. The SAT test is designed to measure achievement, not aptitude. And because those Harvard applicants all prep for the achievement test, comparing their fully-prepped scores is something Harvard can easily do. But when you try to extend that comparison to prepping for an IQ test, your argument falls. The IQ test is designed to be taken without prep. Prepping for it invalidates the test and its norms. I suppose if every child were equally prepped for the same IQ test, then maybe researchers could develop new norms based on that performance-enhanced model, but that's not the world we live in.

Your argument is now starting to sound like the old "Prince and the Pauper" meme (or "Trading Places" or "Gattaca" depending on your demographic) of nature versus nurture. You want to claim that any child can increase his abilities -- perhaps not infinitely, you now admit, but significantly -- through simple hard work. Certainly hard work can take many people a long way. But just working hard is never going to grant me the ability to play basketball like Lebron James, and it's never going to grant you the ability to design the next iPhone. For better or worse, we all are constrained by our genetics.

No need to "spare me" on the NFL analogy. It's OK if you just admit you have no answer for it. It seems you don't know as much about athletics as you've implied.

[Anonymous]

Is IQ fixed? If it is how can prepping for it (like with the ACT) improve the IQ score? Nothing to worry here.
If IQ is not fixed? How do you ensure children remain in an intellectual and mental silo and are not exposed to the content material and similar tasks the test examines? Catch 22. You can't. Kids will read, learn English, gain number sense and get exposure and experience in all the types of tasks tested in variable degrees -- dependent on pre-school training and preparation, tutors, zip codes and SES. Why not call a spade a spade. Transparency for all. Encourage all children to learn, even if it improves their IQ score. What's wrong with that? Are you afraid knowledge will allow children to take away one of your entitled seats in Big 3? Is this your fear? Don't tell them to eat cake and that they will fall on their face if they come to my school because of artificial, unnatural and performance-enhanced scores. Sounds like malarky.

[Anonymous]

The point you keep missing is that IQ tests are not the same thing as intelligence. IQ tests attempt to give an approximation of intelligence, and IQ test scores correlate to some extent with academic performance, but IQ TESTS AND INTELLIGENCE ARE NOT THE SAME THING!! So yes, you can improve a child's score through preparation but that does not make the child more intelligent. And yes, you can improve intelligence through enrichment, challenge, etc., but that is not the same as prepping for an IQ test.

[Anonymous]

If drill reliably led to mastery, she'd have learned that by now, LOL!

But, to her credit, her pedagogy is certainly consistent with her message. Clearly she hopes that frequent repetition of the same tired BS will eventually lead us all to see the light.

[Anonymous]

I think "she" is not right here. I'm pretty certain OP is male, and I suspect he is still in high school, or perhaps early college. Reads a lot of sci-fi. Thinks he's smarter than everyone else. Well educated, but weak at writing, and very little world wisdom. Has a chip about private schools, so probably attends a public magnet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think "she" is not right here. I'm pretty certain OP is male, and I suspect he is still in high school, or perhaps early college. Reads a lot of sci-fi. Thinks he's smarter than everyone else. Well educated, but weak at writing, and very little world wisdom. Has a chip about private schools, so probably attends a public magnet.

God no. If s/he were at a public magnet s/he'd be looking down at the privates, whether or not this is justified, and this is no place to debate the merits of magnets vs. publics. But as a parent of two magnet kids, I can tell you that every school that has at least some barrier to entrance thinks it can look down on every other school. (That, or I just don't want to admit that any magnet kid could be as dense as OP, so humor me here.)

I'm still going with my theory of failed Asian tiger mom. "Failed" as in, her kid didn't get in to private, and probably not into a magnet either. There's lots of Asian competition for the magnet slots, and the magnet entrance test is arguably harder than scoring in the 85th+ percentile on the WPPSI or SSAT that people say is the minimum for the top privates. The Asian tiger mom theory would also explain the aggression and the weak writing skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't understand. Kids that prep like mad for the SAT entrance exams and even jack their scores up 200 points and get into Harvard will end up at this school and not be able to keep up with classmates? Kids who prep for their magnet entrance exams, Catholic school exams, SSAT with outstanding results will have artificial (unnatural and performance-enhanced) scores and will be doomed when they attend their favorite Big 3 school? Kids who play with puzzles, analogy word games, number sense, puzzles and raven-like exercises will fall on their faces in your fine private schools loaded with the brightest of the intelligensia due to artificial and performance-enhanced scores? Many performance-enhanced Asian Americans and other immigrants are stilling kicking much butt in our fancy private schools. On the contrary, I don't see these kids failing to keep. It is your kids that can't keep up. the ones with natural intelligence and no performance. Those are my observations.

I will not even comment on your NFL analogy and spare you.

I agree. A few threads back I tried to point out that there is a big difference between the fallout from faking your way on to the football team, and faking your way into a Big 3. With the football team, you sit on the bench until you and your parents realize that you lack the aggression, football skills or size, and then you go off to try another sport like chess. With the Big 3, you are counseled out, with all the potentially devastating consequences to your self-image.

However, the PP who says that "drill and kill" doesn't work for this OP is right. Lots of people have made lots of different points to her, and she never, ever understands.

[Anonymous]

The point you keep missing is that IQ tests are not the same thing as intelligence. IQ tests attempt to give an approximation of intelligence, and IQ test scores correlate to some extent with academic performance, but IQ TESTS AND INTELLIGENCE ARE NOT THE SAME THING!! So yes, you can improve a child's score through preparation but that does not make the child more intelligent. And yes, you can improve intelligence through enrichment, challenge, etc., but that is not the same as prepping for an IQ test.

I wonder what is intelligence? Please help me understand this concept. You seem to understand. Can intelligence be measured? How can intelligence be measured? Is intelligence fixed (like our everpresent and omnipotent GOD)?

What is an IQ test? What does the IQ test measure? Can one improve the score on an IQ test but not improve intelligence? Are Asian American children more intelligent than others in the DC area?

[Anonymous]

Intelligence is like GOD and RELIGION. You can't see it or measure it? It's just there. Fixed and immoveable and all knowing. Some have intelligence. Some don't. Much like sinners versus the saved. Man will try till the cows come home to prove GOD and INTELLIGENCE exist or even measure or phenotype intelligence and GOD. Now I understand.

The guy's who came up with IQ tests must be sinners...the whole lot of them. How can any fool measure intelligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The point you keep missing is that IQ tests are not the same thing as intelligence. IQ tests attempt to give an approximation of intelligence, and IQ test scores correlate to some extent with academic performance, but IQ TESTS AND INTELLIGENCE ARE NOT THE SAME THING!! So yes, you can improve a child's score through preparation but that does not make the child more intelligent. And yes, you can improve intelligence through enrichment, challenge, etc., but that is not the same as prepping for an IQ test.

I wonder what is intelligence? Please help me understand this concept. You seem to understand. Can intelligence be measured? How can intelligence be measured? Is intelligence fixed (like our everpresent and omnipotent GOD)?

What is an IQ test? What does the IQ test measure? Can one improve the score on an IQ test but not improve intelligence? Are Asian American children more intelligent than others in the DC area?

Hah! See, more proof for my Asian Tiger Mom theory.

Actually, there's evidence that Asian American children don't have higher IQs than other ethnic groups, instead they succeed because they work harder, being driven by Asian tiger moms. If I have a chance I'll dig out a cite to the study.

[Anonymous]

Sure, keep digging.
Do Asian Americans have higher scores on IQ tests?
Are they smarter and more intelligent than the rest of us?
If not, how do you know?

[Anonymous]

From the other thread on Asian IQs:

"Asians don't have higher IQs, when you control for SES. The only studies that suggested otherwise used old tests with dated norms. Source: What is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by Jame R. Flynn."

Actually, my source was different but said the same thing. However I'm not in the mood to spend time humoring you, so you'll have to live with this other poster's source.

Here's really telling thing: I'm guessing you started that other thread. So you were already aware of the source above. And yet you pretend to ignore it. Why, oh why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Intelligence is like GOD and RELIGION. You can't see it or measure it? It's just there. Fixed and immoveable and all knowing. Some have intelligence. Some don't. Much like sinners versus the saved. Man will try till the cows come home to prove GOD and INTELLIGENCE exist or even measure or phenotype intelligence and GOD. Now I understand.

The guy's who came up with IQ tests must be sinners...the whole lot of them. How can any fool measure intelligence.

I always tested well on any test that was given to me. I was told my entire life that I was smart. I supposedly had a high IQ.

DH was always a poor test taker. He was never told he was smart. He studied his ass off and did extremely well.

DH kicks my ass and then some in all subjects. My knowledge is fleeting. Sure, I'm better at puzzles and tests. That is all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the other thread on Asian IQs:

"Asians don't have higher IQs, when you control for SES. The only studies that suggested otherwise used old tests with dated norms. Source: What is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by Jame R. Flynn."

Actually, my source was different but said the same thing. However I'm not in the mood to spend time humoring you, so you'll have to live with this other poster's source.

Here's really telling thing: I'm guessing you started that other thread. So you were already aware of the source above. And yet you pretend to ignore it. Why, oh why?

Why are people so threatened by Asians?

They are smarter. Just get over it.

[Anonymous]

From the other thread on Asian IQs:

"Asians don't have higher IQs, when you control for SES. The only studies that suggested otherwise used old tests with dated norms. Source: What is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect by Jame R. Flynn."

Actually, my source was different but said the same thing. However I'm not in the mood to spend time humoring you, so you'll have to live with this other poster's source.

Here's really telling thing: I'm guessing you started that other thread. So you were already aware of the source above. And yet you pretend to ignore it. Why, oh why?

You enjoy pulling out your grey hairs. Keep guessing like a rat on ritalin caught in a maze running from one corner to the next!