Fast Intelligence versus Slow Intelligence

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A while ago I did an IQ test that Mensa uses and nearly all of my answers were correct, an excellent result, EXCEPT that there was supposed to be a time limit on the test and I took something like 4x the limit to finish it.

In other words, if allowed to take as much time as I want, my IQ result is very, very good. But if required to not exceed the time limit, then it is not so good (many questions remain unanswered, actually not even read). I am quite good at solving the problems in IQ tests but not very fast at it. (Another problem is finding the IQ test problems very boring and thus difficult to feel motivated to think about.)

This idea of having a time limit in an IQ test really irks me. It seems to be a very unrealistic measure of intelligence. It is not applicable to most real life scenarios that demand intelligence. Say you are a rocket scientist and you are developing a new type of rocket. You have months, perhaps YEARS to think about and solve this problem. So why should an IQ test be limited to an hour or so?

And these people who can answer the IQ test questions faster than I can are NOT necessarily more intelligent than I. IQ test problems are relatively simple (solveable within a matter of minutes) compared to the real world problems that require days/months/years to solve. It is quite possible that a person who can answer IQ test questions quickly is actually poor at solving the more complex problems in the real world.

Seems to me that time-limited IQ tests are measuring your speed more than your intelligence.

Anyone else think that they are quite intelligent but slow?

Er, sometimes.
When doing something with a time limit I tend to be a lot worse at completing anything because of the pressure of time. I've seen others, they seem to enjoy the challenge. To me it just seems to be another obstacle to make me stuff up.

IQ tests are useless at measuring intelligence. I know people supposedly 10 or 20 points ahead of me who aren't nearly as intelligent. Maybe it's because they're NTs, but whatever... hmmmmm, anecdotal lack-of-evidence...

When i take an IQ test i always get okay results. but people in school always say it should be higher, what i tend to do is rush through because my time keeping is so bad. i also tend to get annoyed at the test halfway through and start "geusstimating"

hope this helps

jammie

Yeah i seem to have the same problem with those tests.
I just quit doing the last one as my thinking simply wasn't fast enough to answer them.
If given the time i would get good scores.
I'd need a few cans of red bull to think fast enough for those iq tests

I don't believe in the accuracy of IQ tests - there really are too many variables that come into play that may effect someone's ability to "perform" on the tests especially under pressure. But I do remember taking a test like that for a job one time that involved moving information along in a timely manner. So in that regard I could see that the ability to answer the questions correctly and quickly WERE important for that particular job. (I got the job at the time - lol).

I do some of my best thinking, days, weeks or even months after I'm asked a question. I prioritize info as it comes in and process it in some fashion at my leisure.
If you just happen not to be 'smart' it doesn't mean that you're not 'intelligent'. Tests are largely for normal people, at least for average people and a poor score on a test of any kind usually just means you're not good at taking tests and nothing more. If you get hung up on comparisons you'll eventually get lost and that's not a good place to be.
Follow your own road, question everything, trust nothing, stay true to your own beliefs no matter what. 90% of the time you'll find that you're 'right' and everybody else is 'wrong' but don't get discouraged if nobody believes you.

I like doing IQ tests online just for fun, since I don't think they're accurate at all (I've gotten IQs from 105 to 157; how's that for accuracy).

However I tend to finish them *very* quickly, in half the time or so, and still get good results. Perhaps it's got something to do with me having ADD as well as AS; I can be so easily distracted that I guess my brain has gotten used to work *fast*.

Anyway I don't think being fast means being more intelligent. I guess it's got more to do with thinking styles.

One reason i think the IQ tests are timed. Employers want drone workers who do X at a fast pace that is what is measured not so much if you have more time. The more thought out type work is not as needed as much or so employers think. This is my take I could be wrong.

I would agree that there are advantages to fast thinking, especially for certain jobs, but slow thinkers should not automatically be dismissed as unintelligent as timed IQ tests seem to do. Slow thinking has advantages as well.

I am not very good at timed IQ tests yet my occupation is one that indisputedly demands intelligence, so therefore I am not an idiot just because I cannot do timed IQ tests well.

Re online IQ tests, they are all bogus, usually just set up to attract attention for marketing purposes, or as a source of revenue from advertising.

I have the time limit problem.

I could perform much better if I had more time.

But I guess part of intelligence in IQ of all things it also counts how fast you're able to work out the problems.

You've just hit on one of the reasons why IQ tests are completly unreliable with anyone who is on the spectrum

I remember one time when I was in high school I participated in a science quiz / competition. A few weeks later, the results were returned. My overall score was poor. The results included the correct/incorrect assessment for every single question, and looking at this, one could observe a curious thing:

Almost all of the first third of my answers were correct. Then the other two-thirds were nearly all incorrect. One could see this very obvious point at which the answers changed from being nearly all correct to the opposite.

You can guess what happened at that point. That was when I hit the time limit. When doing the quiz, naturally I started at the first question, and sequentially proceeded to answer each question. About a third of the way through, I was interrupted -- that was the end of the time limit. So I was forced to just randomly guess the remaining two-thirds of the answers without even reading the questions, no more time.

So I failed the quiz, but only because of this stupid time limit. The trend in the results indicated that I would have done quite well if I had been allowed to finish the damn thing in my own time.

It was demoralizing and discouraging. Before that, I was a very good student in my science class, but then after that stupid quiz, I became less interested in my science class and less motivated to do the work. Only as an adult do I now understand that it was an unfair test and I had no reason to feel demoralized.

Teachers need to understand what it feels like when you work hard in a class, you are confident that you know the subject very well, you believe you are a good student because of how well you have been paying attention in class, and then you do an exam or quiz which tells you that you are crap!! That hurts, and as a kid you do not realize that the exam/quiz was unfair and is an inaccurate reflection of your abilities.

I have met several people that are "slow" and people mistake them for being stupid; a very big mistake.

I think that many Artists might be "Slow Thinkers" these people are also geniuses. I've had to slow my thinking down, becuase it's hard to produce an accurate piece of Art, when I have thoughts going through my Mind, at 100 miles an hour. I think that the fact that I've slowed down my thinking might affect my scores on those Timed IQ Tests.