Wednesday, April 04, 2012

IQ test gripe

Look at the following question:

Which of the following doesn't belong?

a. quarter
b. dime
c. penny
d. nickel

Did you pick "penny" because it's the only one that's not silver? According to one IQ test by Hans Eysenck (I have it in dead-tree form, so I can't link to it), you'd be correct. But this irks me: what if you happened to notice that the dime is the only coin with an even-numbered value (25¢, 10¢, 1¢, 5¢)?

I'm curious as to how people create IQ tests. What makes people decide, for questions like the one above, that this unique trait is correct while that unique trait is beneath consideration? Is there something more "obvious" about the respective colors versus the respective values of each coin? I admit I don't get it... which is probably why I'm not a genius.


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7 comments:

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

You don't unnerstan cos your stoopid.

Jeffery Hodges

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Kevin Kim said...

an YER jussa bIgg steemig terd frum Ark and Saw!

John from Daejeon said...

Damn, I thought it had to be the two bit piece as its variance is 15 cents greater than that of the short bit and all three of the lesser amounts are within a tight 10 cent variance.

Likewise, if these were your children, which one wouldn't fit due to the extreme variance? Dammit, Bruce Willis just blew that all to hell. No, wait. His kids are 23, 20, 18, and .0082.

SJHoneywell said...

The dime is also the only coin that is smaller than coins of a lesser value.

I'm still trying to come up with something for the nickel.

I always mistrust those "find the thing that's different" questions because I can usually think of something that fits for at least half the answers.

Charles said...

I'm with you on this one, Kevin.

IQ tests are all bogus anyway, since they have to be normative to function as tests; true genius is all about being able to think outside the box.

Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Ah, the nickel . . .

Well, it's the only one named for the metal it's made of (not counting the copper).

Of course, the penny's the only one that's not silver-colored, as Kevin noted.

And the penny's also the only one not evenly divisible by five.

As someone noted, the dime is the only one that's even-numbered.

I would have thought the quarter the unique one, by virtue of belonging to every other set, but John scotched that one.

You see, we've thought so well outside of the box that we've surely thought of things that the test designers had no inklings of.

Jeffery Hodges

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Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Oh, yeh, Kevin, I fergot tuh add that I looked outta my ark and saw your still stoopid, yuh beg ugly steamin piyuhl ov qualia-ridden hash-browns.

Jeffery Hodges

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