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A comment on Interview with Terence Tao. Parent comment

Re:Interview with Terence Tao by sz4kerto on Monday September 29, 2014 @08:21AM (#8382554)
Not really -- the IQ tests used by MENSA for example are quite reliable/stable. You can improve your result by 6-10 points with a lot of training, but that's usually the most that people can achieve.
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Re:Interview with Terence Tao by bradleyjg on Monday September 29, 2014 @02:25PM (#8384304)
A standard deviation on IQ tests is 15 points. A 6-10 point improvement from the median represents a jump of 15.5 - 24.75 percentile rank. Even at the level MENSA is looking at, someone with a 10 point improvement could have a "true IQ" at just above the 95th percentile and qualify for their 98th percentile cutoff.
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Re:Interview with Terence Tao by S4M on Monday September 29, 2014 @09:11AM (#8382737)
Maybe the reason MENSA's tests are reliable is that not many people are interested in joining MENSA - I am not denying that MENSA can be of interest, but its admittance would not be worth preparing IQ tests like crazy.

On the other hand, if IQ tests were used for admissions in prestigious universities, you can bet some students will train specifically for IQ tests.

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Re:Interview with Terence Tao by skj on Monday September 29, 2014 @11:13AM (#8383237)
Maybe they'd all get a bit smarter as a result?
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