Where can I get online training for the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test?

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Request for Question Clarification by tutuzdad-ga on 12 Aug 2003 20:15 PDT

People don't normally study for an IQ test. Its a means of measuring
the level of intelligence you've already acquired. What exactly are
you hoping to find?

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 22 Aug 2003 11:23 PDT

Do you mean training in how to take the test, or training in how to
administer the test?

I spent a decade as an aptitude testing specialist for a government
agency. Often I was asked "How do I prepare for the test?" I heard
similar questions from applicants when I was a test proctor for Mensa,
administering IQ tests.

Aptitude and intelligence tests do not test what you know. Their
purpose is to measure your basic capacity for knowing. You can no more
"train" for them than you can train for a blood test or an eye exam.

The best preparation is to be well rested and totally drug-free at the
time of the test.

(drug free meaning no caffeine or ritalin?)

There are lots of free IQ tests on the web.
Taking a few of those might be worthwhile.
Three advantages to taking them are:

1) grow more comfortable taking tests in general
2) get accustomed to IQ-test type questions like "complete this
sequence of numbers"
3) since many IQ tests have almost identical questions, you can try to
"beat" the test

You can indeed "beat" many forms of IQ tests by practising the puzzles
they involve.  This is because the results you receive are based on a
statistical analysis of a subject group with no releveant prior
knowledge of the testing procedure.

If you bother to practise doing such IQ tests the results will be
invalid,  i.e they won't reflect your true IQ. Fortunately, scoring
higher than you would au natural is undetectable and likely to bring
many benefits.  Viva cheating !

If you abstain from coffee for a while you can temporally raise your
IQ by taking nondecaffeinated coffee about an hour before the exam on
an emty stomach.
Also getting a good nights rest for a few days before the exam will
also.

Axxxion

I must disagree with pinkfreud-ga, based on personal experience. I've
had a life long interest in logic puzzles and IQ tests. When I sat the
Mensa supervised test, I flew through it, based on previous
experience, and received an extremely high score, several standard
deviations higher that my previous supervised test taken before I had
an interested in this subject.

Knowing the best technique was very useful. At the start I ran all the
way through the test, answering only those questions I could answer
immediately, then went back for those requiring more thought. As soon
as I read a question, my first thought was to break it down into known
areas, again based on previous experience. I first asked myself the
question "what is the conceptual 'key' to this question that I need to
understand?"  e.g. with an "a is to b, as c is to d" type question, I
would immediately look for 2 relationships between a and b, one more
obvious than the other. I would then look to see if there was a "c to
d" relationship that appeared similar to the more obvious a to b
relationship, but didn't match completely when the logic was anlaysed.
This would eliminate that answer and leave me with high confidence of
the alternative, more subtle relationship. In many cases, I would then
accept this answer and move on to the next question with spending time
doing a full logical analysis of the "correct" answer, leaving this
process until I had spare time at the end of the test for a 3rd run
through.

One could argue that I would have to be highly intelligent to come up
with these techniques, but these are techniques that can be taught to
another person, to their advantage.

Regards,
Tim

Hi, my two cents. I studied the whole idea of IQ tests when in
college, and the clear conclusion after reading many studies, for me,
was IQ tests do not measure intelligence; they just measure your
ability to take tests.

Of course, your ability to take tests can be improved simply by
practice; and, by the way, I believe intelligence can also be improved
by practice too: just like the ability to play tennis or the piano.

There were some tests to measure 'spatial reasoning' on a test I took
recently, and I had no idea of how to answer them. But, just like
finding out how a crossword puzzle-maker thinks, once you know the
*method,* you also know how to go about finding the answer.

So one way is to do lots of tests, and get to see the correct answers
and figure out how they were arrived at.

Emode has an online test available, at http://www.emode.com/tests/uiq/
It's free, and they give you a numerical answer, but you need to pay
them to get more information.

best wishes, intotravel.

I don't believe that you can acquire intelligence.  You can acquire
knowledge.  Indeed, their are many educated idiots walking the planet
with degrees.  Too many people confuse education for intelligence.  If
you were somehow to gain access to the questions, or better yet the
answers, before you took the test, you could "study".  However, the
results would be no more an indication of your intelligence than your
results in a history quiz.
 
There has been talk of cultural bias in these tests.  Yet, some
cultures other than Anglo-Saxon, such as Asian, have scored extremely
well with them.  Just as some people have red hair, some people have
more intelligence.  Like it or not, it is genetically predisposed.  Of
course, proper nutrition and upbringing will allow one to get the most
out of what they have.  Proper exercise, rest and diet will help you
achieve your potential for a strong body.  Some have more genetic
potential for health than others.  The same is true of intelligence.
 
Another interesting facet of the mind is that one can be gifted in one
area and totally lacking in others.  Thus, the idiot-savant.  Plus you
could be the genius of the century, but never have the motivation or
persistence to amount to anything.  A certain amount of ignorance is
also healthy.  It allows you to attempt and succeed at things that
others who are smarter than you think are impossible.  We all have a
tendency to become prisoners of our own paradigms.

Peanut-I'm dying to know "why?" The old fashioned IQ tests are hardly
used anymore and a psychiatrist told me the highest density of people
with ultra high IQs are in the psychiatric unit at
Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital!

Intelligence is quoted on Dictionary.com as being:

- The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. 
- The faculty of thought and reason. 
- Superior powers of mind

The mind is a deeply complex system. I do not believe you can rank a
human's intelligence on an IQ test. The problem with the IQ is not in
its accuracy of testing mathematical, visual and logic-based
conceptual abilities, but its complete lack of taking into account the
infinite complexities of the human mind.

I don't believe there is such a thing as true intelligence. You could
have a high IQ, but in brain wave tests, medium activity as opposed to
someone whom performs low on an IQ but is continually thinking of
unique ideas and concepts not confined to the regulations of a test.

Just because I know a hand is to glove as a head is to hat doesn't
mean I'm smarter than the next. Sure, 4567 is to 7654 as 8990 is to
0998, but these questions are developed by humans of today's time
period. Even now we dismiss older versions of the IQ as not being
accurate, so wouldn't it seem logical that future generations would
deem ours the same way?

IQ is only of relevance if your trying to measure one's logical
conceptual abilities. True genius is not found in that alone, but in
the ability to utilize the logical and exlpore the illogical.