Sunday, May 29, 2011

27 out of 30

I tried the Mensa Workout last night and got 27 out of 30 right. Two of the problems that killed me were of the "unscramble the word" sort. The third problem I got wrong was... well, I got it wrong because I didn't think it through well enough.

I also made a second attempt at an IQ test that I'd found through Malcolm's blog. That test was a killer, and made me feel all kinds of stupid. Here-- you can feel stupid, too. Unlike the Mensa Workout, which is just for shits and giggles, this test dares to assess your IQ. Tell me if you beat 140, and then explain how you did it, because some of those problems were totally unfathomable to me. (Again, unlike the Mensa Workout, this IQ test doesn't offer explanations of the problems you get wrong. In fact, you're not told which ones you get wrong. All you see is a score. In all, a far more challenging workout than Mensa's.)


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6 comments:

SJHoneywell said...

28 out of 30. The anagrams got me, too.

Kevin Kim said...

You got the "7s" question right, I gather. That's the one where I wasn't thinking. Duh.

Well, in Fairfax County, VA, a 28/30, or 93.3%, translates to a B+ (A = 94-100); I, with my lowly 90%, ended up with a lower (lowlier) B+.

John from Daejeon said...

What the hell is going on in that county of yours? 93.3% is an A-. No wonder why our schools are doing so poorly. They can't even fathom simple math.

Kevin Kim said...

John,

Yeah, Fairfax County's standards have generally been pretty high. They like churning out equal numbers of neurotic overachievers and rebellious underachievers who spit on those standards. Heh. The grading scale for Fairfax County Public Schools back when I was a student:

94-100 = A
90-93 = B+
84-89 = B
80-83 = C+
74-79 = C
70-73 = D+
64-69 = D
under 64 = F

Just for comparison: the private Catholic high school at which I taught in the early 1990s (in Arlington County, VA) used a grading scale that began with 93-100 = A. What disturbed me, though, was that teachers weren't allowed to give students anything less than a 60% as a final grade for any given quarter. The only time a score below 60 was allowed was when the students took their final exams. Finals could, in theory, be given a zero.

One of the students where I now teach told me that Fairfax County has recently instituted "minus" grades (A-minus, etc.). That was news to me; I just looked up the new grading scale, and the standards have dropped precipitously to the 10-point scale used throughout most of the country. See here. Yikes.

John from Daejeon said...

There is something wrong with them when they call it "modified." It is a return to the regular, or normal, grading system used nearly everywhere else. There old system was the modified system.

As for IQ tests and Mensa, today my brother, who barely squeaked by in high school and did not go to college, used his "common sense" to run electrical wiring and water lines to my retirement house and saved me a ton of money. What's really amazing is that his work expertise is in computers and only through trial and error has he become a pretty good electrician and plumber. While my brother that is a doctor, but not a "real doctor doctor," can't even dress himself most days.

What surprised me the most is when my common sense brother cut through my neighbor's water line (why it is under my property, I don't know), he commonly went about repairing it while my "smarter" brother nearly fainted due to this seemingly awful catastrophe that really was quite easy for us to repair.

John from Daejeon said...

"commonly" instead of calmly, I need to get off the computer and into bed. I've been up for about 48 hours straight digging trenches, cutting trees and brush, and all sorts of other odd jobs around my place while on my short vacation before I have to head back to South Korea before long.