Re(2): writing tests are for wussies...

[Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de>]

>So I'm wondering: does any person or organization "own" the standards used
>to call a test an IQ test?

No

>Or can I string together a bunch of questions
>and call it the Keithomatic IQ Test?

You could _call_ it that (there's no trademark or anything), but that
wouldn't _make_ it an IQ test.

>Is it okay if mine tests the
>subject's ability to remember lines from old movies, and to be able to
>identify Heineken in a blindfolded beer-tasting test?

Yes, that's OK. But it wouldn't give you the IQ.

All IQ tests measure how your result in the test compares to that of a
representative sample of the population. If you are exactly average, you
are assigned an IQ of 100. If three quarters of the population would be
doing better than you, many test assign you an IQ of 90; if only 25%
would have done betterm you get an IQ of 110. 70 means that 98% of the
population would have done better, etc. (The numbers vary between tests
- some may equate 120 with the 75% mark etc. - but all have this bell-
shaped distribution.)

This means that, to create a test, you need to know how the population
overall (or a large enough repesentative sample) would do in your test,
which in turn means that you need to find up to several thousand
(depending on how accurate you want your test to be for the large and
small values) volunteers, administer the test, and then evaluate the
results to find a mapping between the individual questions and the
overall IQ (i.e., rank within the entire population.)

If you think that that sounds like a major piece of work, you're right.
This is why there are comparatively few serious IQ tests, most of coming
from some psychological research project.

Finally, as for measuring the IQ by tasting Heineken's: I'm afraid not.
While there is some disagreement as to what exactly is part of
'intelligence', it is practically universally agreed that the core is
logical reasoning. It is equally uncontroversial that knowledge, in
whatever form, is _not_ part of intelligence. Neither is the sharpness of
your senses, whether eyesight or taste.

So an IQ test that asks you to name the last five Presidents is not
really an IQ test. And tasting beer is fun, but does not say anything
about your IQ. (But note that memory is frequently considered part of the
IQ, so you might be shown some things in a real IQ test and then later be
asked to recall them.)

Regards
Jan Henning

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Jan Henning
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