From: hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath)
Subject: Re: WARNING! (Re: Since we are on the topic of puzzles ...)
Organization: The Cat Factory
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 18:20:10 GMT


You wrote:
>>From: The Polymath <hollombe@polymath.tti.com>
>>
>>I've got a copy I've been working on in my odd, spare moments (few and far
>>between these days).  It's not all that impressive.
>
>Compared to what?  The questions are far more interesting than anything
>on a standardized test from the ETS, for example.  The test has been
>professionally review in Test Critiques as a "pioneering effort" in
>high-end testing.

Pioneers are usually distinguishable by the arrows in their backs.
"Pioneering effort" translates as "taking an interesting, untried
direction", not "valid test of whatever."

>>analogies/vocabulary section trivial, especially since you're allowed to
>>use references.
>
>Then why do so few people get high scores?

Poor training in reseach skills?  Poor question design?  (The test is
only interested in answers, not how they were derived.  Perhaps there
are perfectly correct rationales for some of the answers marked
wrong).

>>Ho hum.  Just another ego trip. (And to speak of compromising it is just
>>plain silly.  It's public.  The answers are known.
>
>No they're not - not by the general public, and certainly not by many
>who bother sending in the answers. ...

The "general public" doesn't even know the test exists.  It addresses a
very narrow group of people, most of whom are unlikely to cheat.  That
doesn't mean the answers aren't availaible to anyone who wants to look
for them.

>...  Again, how come so few people have
>high scores?  Incidentally, if you haven't actually sent in your answers
>yet, perhaps you've misled yourself - some people don't get anywhere
>near the score they thought they would.  A Wall Street Journal article
>(front page, April 9) tells of a mathematician "who sneered: '...that's
>merely a problem in combinatorics.'  ...the mathematician later took the
>Mega test and got only three nonverbal problems right {out of 24}."

I'll stand by every verbal answer I send in, regardless of score.  I
can justify every one of them.  If there are other justifiable answers
and only one set is correct then it's a mind-reading test, not an
intelligence test.

>>No psychologist or institution of learning would take it seriously.
>)there's nothing to compromise).
>
>Not only has it been professionally reviewed, the test has been *taken*
>by psychologists, as well lawyers, doctors, engineers, and even a famous
>politician. ...

So?  There's quite a difference between "taken" and "taken seriously"
(and there's no shortage of incompetent psychologists in the world,
either.  The integrity of lawyers and politicians hardly bears
discussion, not that they're competent to judge the value of such a
test in any case).

>... On the other hand, there are professionals who think the
>Wechsler IQ test and the CEEB SAT should not be taken seriously by any
>psychologist or institution of learning.  What can I say?

That you aren't trained in psychology?  I am.  (That M.A. in my
.signature is in clinical psychology).  There are very good reasons why
the WAIS, et al., are _not_ available to the general public.  You can
find a "professional" to say almost anything about anything if you look
far enough.  The mainstream disagrees.

>If you don't enjoy the Mega Test, don't take it.  But others have
>enjoyed it immensely, and that's a fact.  Perhaps they're just not up to
>your level where the whole test becomes insufferably boring.

Oh, I'm enjoying it.  I also enjoy crossword puzzles and card games,
but I don't pretend they say anything useful about my intelligence or
that revealing the answers is any great crime.

The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@polymath.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp                   Turn the rascals out!
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (310) 450-9111, x2483     No incumbents in '92!
Santa Monica, CA  90405
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa