Free online IQ tests

[Landrew]

Call me skeptical, but I think most of these are a bit of a scam, designed to give everyone an elevated score, setting you up to be sold something or other.


I had a bit of an argument with a woman a few years back, who kept asserting she was right, despite all my best reasoning. She culminated the argument by saying, "anyway, I'm right because I have a superior IQ."  I ask how that was, and she said, "because I scored 135 on the internet."
 

[PTRSAK]

If they are inflated, they are all remarkably similar in their degree. I have done several over the years and they have all said about the same.
Actually those matched up pretty closely with a couple of "real" ones I did including a MENSA screening test where I got 138.

Anyway, IQ is more an indicator of potential rather than a measure of a persons "braininess" on any particular subject. I mean I may have a higher than average IQ, but I know next to nothing about (for instance) C++ coding. But I could learn it quicker than most people.

[Heinz Doofenshmirtz]

As a psychology professor, I can say without hesitation that the idea of IQ has been almost completely debunked at this stage of our understanding of intelligence and reasoning behavior.  There is still an overall score for intelligence that's referred to now simply as "g", but it's well acknowledged in the field of cognitive psychology it's an oversimplification at best.  The person who has published the most about IQ in the past several years is Howard Gardener, who formulated the theory of multiple intelligences, which is the most widely accepted theory of intelligence in scientific psychology now days.  He's published several books on it that are very accessible and easy to read.  I highly recommend his writing.

[PTRSAK]

One thing I AM smart enough to do is defer to an expert in the field...

[nuphoria]

It's all relative to the practical application in hand, so I don't see how you can measure intelligence in such a one dimensional way and it be meaningful or accurate.

According to standard IQ testing (not free online nonsense), I'm a genius but I know I'm utterly stupid in some ways, and also severely dyslexic... perhaps still smarter than the average bear when it's all boiled down, but it's a mostly pointless measure of a person IMHO.

[AimlessWanderer]

Totally agree  An irrelevant measurement of a small percentage of a persons cognitive processing. It's like rating a car based on the size of the glove compartment - there's a whole lot more to a person than their IQ

[Landrew]

If you have done a full battery of cognitive clinical tests, and scored a percentile of 80, when the median of the population is at 50, I suppose you could equate that to an IQ of 160.

[jzmtl]

Lol, I've gotten around 150 or 160  over 10 years ago on one of those online tests. No matter how accurate it is though I'm a lot dumber now.

But yes I'm sure the result is drastically different depending on field. I can understand mechanical/scientifical concepts very quickly, however give me something in art/religion I'd rather bash my head on a wall.

I once took an intro to world religion class in university, you know trying to enlighten myself and stuff.  That turned out to be a huge mistake, starting from the first chapter I struggled to understand any of the basic concepts, felt more difficult than rocket science and that was the most basic intro course. After it was done I probably hated all religions just because the headache I got from the course.