Anybody here a member of MENSA?

[mikex]

I'd like to be a member, but I can't figure out how to join.

[Kylyssa]

When I was in seventh grade a teacher suggested I join Mensa after I blew away the Reader's Digest mini Mensa test he handed out.  Then, when I scored 1560 on the SAT test I took the next year, he suggested it again.  I couldn't see what such a group would hold for a thirteen year old girl.

Talking about IQ, and particularly talking about my IQ has only ever caused problems.  People learned I could play chess when I was a toddler so then people put pressure on my parents to make me perform in tournaments.  I got jumped ahead two grades in school only to get bullied and knocked around a little until I was switched back in with my age mates.  Adults found out I could do a reverse phone look-up on a big city phone-book in less than five minutes and acted as if I were a dog trained to perform tricks for them.

I never got to collect the wonderful scholarships I had amassed.  I have not cured cancer, nor gotten filthy rich, nor have I ended war.  And there are people who are disappointed in me because of these things!

Being intelligent only accomplishes so much.  I'm autistic and I could have done better with a set of social skills than with the ability to solve equations in my head, read a novel in less than an hour, or to play a bit of music by ear.  People were so busy putting me on display that I never actually learned the survival skills I needed.  People also took great enjoyment from the fact that I fell on my face when my parents abandoned me.

I don't think that an IQ test result requirement is enough to give the members enough in common to build relationships or to create a sense of community.  To pay out cash to join a club in which people have nothing in common but a desire to talk about their intelligence test results- it doesn't make sense to me.

[Tank]

I'd like to be a member, but I can't figure out how to join.

I so nearly found a link for you then  

[karadan]

Nope, but I know a Young-Earth Creationist dumber than a sac of bricks who is.

That is -worthly right there.

[humblesmurph]

When I was in seventh grade a teacher suggested I join Mensa after I blew away the Reader's Digest mini Mensa test he handed out.  Then, when I scored 1560 on the SAT test I took the next year, he suggested it again.  I couldn't see what such a group would hold for a thirteen year old girl.

Talking about IQ, and particularly talking about my IQ has only ever caused problems.  People learned I could play chess when I was a toddler so then people put pressure on my parents to make me perform in tournaments.  I got jumped ahead two grades in school only to get bullied and knocked around a little until I was switched back in with my age mates.  Adults found out I could do a reverse phone look-up on a big city phone-book in less than five minutes and acted as if I were a dog trained to perform tricks for them.

I never got to collect the wonderful scholarships I had amassed.  I have not cured cancer, nor gotten filthy rich, nor have I ended war.  And there are people who are disappointed in me because of these things!

Being intelligent only accomplishes so much.  I'm autistic and I could have done better with a set of social skills than with the ability to solve equations in my head, read a novel in less than an hour, or to play a bit of music by ear.  People were so busy putting me on display that I never actually learned the survival skills I needed.  People also took great enjoyment from the fact that I fell on my face when my parents abandoned me.

I don't think that an IQ test result requirement is enough to give the members enough in common to build relationships or to create a sense of community.  To pay out cash to join a club in which people have nothing in common but a desire to talk about their intelligence test results- it doesn't make sense to me.

Well, the only benefit that I could see for me was group buying power. Groups like mensa and AAA get discounts on hotels and rental cars and credit card rates.  It does seem like gifted individuals like yourself might benefit from being around others with the same abilities.  I wouldn't know if  mensa is where to find them though.  

I'm sorry you had it so rough.  It's sad when people try to burden the young with such expectations. I hope all is well for you now.

[joeactor]

I went to a couple meetings many moons ago.

Not my type either.  Many seemed socially awkward.  Constructing their next sentence from the "Dictionary of Really Big Words" just to impress everyone.

One meeting had a magician as entertainment.  The crowd seemed amazed at even the simplest tricks... Maybe this explains your Y.E.C.?

Smart-Ass in Smarty Pants,
JoeActor

[joe716]

I've been to a few meetings, which were a waste of time.  I didn't care for their elitist attitudes and unnecessary pedantic word choice.

Just my view, but intelligence and IQ do not mean a damn thing if you are lazy.  Some woman named Marilyn von Savant has the highest IQ ever measured at 228.  Now she writes for Parade Magazine, a respectable a job, but still not anything to write home about (pun intended).

[Tank]

I've been to a few meetings, which were a waste of time.  I didn't care for their elitist attitudes and unnecessary pedantic word choice.

Just my view, but intelligence and IQ do not mean a damn thing if you are lazy.  Some woman named Marilyn von Savant has the highest IQ ever measured at 228.  Now she writes for Parade Magazine, a respectable a job, but still not anything to write home about (pun intended).

I agree with the effort point. Without a goal and the practical application of effort to achieve that goal one is F*****! Of late the quality of kids coming out of school and university has taken a big hit not because they are not bright, they are just bloody lazy! The introduction in the UK of standardised target driven education with the national curriculum has turned education into extended training to task. This breeds a behaviour of expecting to be told what the answer is, not being taught how to find the correct answer. These kids default position is 'sit until kicked and then expect to be spoon fed', it is very, very worrying. Fortunately my kids were perpetually and sufficiently challenged to solve problems for themselves by myself and my wife.

I suffered from an overbearing father, who while never physically abusive, was always, always right (even when he was wrong!) so I tended not to bother debating him and adopted a rather passive role as a youngster. He was diagnosed with cancer when I was 12 and died two weeks after my 17th birthday so during that time I was never permitted my teenage rebellion. The result of this is that I'm reactive but without something to react too I do have a tendency to lack self motivation and will default to 'inactivity'.

[SSY]

I've been to a few meetings, which were a waste of time.  I didn't care for their elitist attitudes and unnecessary pedantic word choice.

Just my view, but intelligence and IQ do not mean a damn thing if you are lazy.  Some woman named Marilyn von Savant has the highest IQ ever measured at 228.  Now she writes for Parade Magazine, a respectable a job, but still not anything to write home about (pun intended).

I agree with the effort point. Without a goal and the practical application of effort to achieve that goal one is F*****! Of late the quality of kids coming out of school and university has taken a big hit not because they are not bright, they are just bloody lazy! The introduction in the UK of standardised target driven education with the national curriculum has turned education into extended training to task. This breeds a behaviour of expecting to be told what the answer is, not being taught how to find the correct answer. These kids default position is 'sit until kicked and then expect to be spoon fed', it is very, very worrying. Fortunately my kids were perpetually and sufficiently challenged to solve problems for themselves by myself and my wife.

I agree here, as soon as schools started being measured and compared on exam results, they started only training kids to pass exams (Goodhart's law). The exam results situation over here is completely moronic, 27 consecutive years of increasing grades, without a single dip ever. Of course now, this has built to the point where no one will tackle it because they don't want to be the bearer of bad news.

During my time at school, I noticed the way the system was geared as well. If you were a no hoper, no chance at all of getting 5 GCSEs, they left you, if you were actually a good student, and could get 5 GCSEs without a problem, you were left. The kids who were borderline were then given an inordinate amount of help, so they could just get the grades (in the UK, a common metric is the percentage of kids in a year who get 5 GCSEs with grades of C and up).

 I thought I would be free of it once I got to A level, but here, in order to boost average results, you were encouraged to take "soft" courses, I was heavily discouraged from taking my selection ( the three sciences and maths), and instead they suggested something easier for me. It is also normal to drop one your A levels going into the last year of schooling, but the school get's more funding if everyone takes 4 A levels in final year, so they encourage people to drop one of their subjects in order to replace it with "General Studies", a course with no lessons, no homework and no coursework, you just turned up and sat the exam. They made me take it even though I had declined to drop one of my subjects. This is to say nothing of the actual teaching was often consisted of studying mark schemes for last year's paper.

So, despite the fact I got top marks at school, when I stepped up to university, there were a couple of months of wild floundering where I sucked, and sucked hard in comparison to my classmates, before finally getting it together.

If I come off bitter, it's because I am, I honestly feel I could have more spent my teenage years more productively sitting in a quiet library without having to wrangle with all the "initiatives" my school foisted on us.

[Squid]

I'm not a member of MENSA, I don't even know what my IQ is and I don't care - from a measurement perspective the golden standard IQ tests aren't anything to truly get all excited about.  I'd be more apt to side with Howard Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences which I think more accurately reflects human ability rather than solving little puzzles (I hate puzzles btw).  Even if I was told I was some super-genius, which I severely doubt, I have no want to join a "smart people" club...I'd rather hang out at a decent bar with my usual band of misfits and metal-heads.

Some woman named Marilyn von Savant has the highest IQ ever measured at 228.  Now she writes for Parade Magazine, a respectable a job, but still not anything to write home about (pun intended).

She had written something in her Parade column regarding psychopharmacology/psychophysiology (I think it had something to do with the effects of particular herbal supplements on specific ligands but I can't remember exactly what they were talking about) a while back which was inaccurate, I thought about writing in and correcting her information but I quickly realized that I really didn't care.

[Martin TK]

I have to say that I never joined MENSA, although I have known many people who have been members, and like one person said, I find most of them to be socially awkward.  As a psychologist, I have to say that there are some values to "testing" in my profession, but when it comes to intelligence versus education, over the years I have a LOT of evidence that one does not necessarily equate to the other.  Meaning, of course, that I have found many people with average IQ's who have achieved GREAT things in academia and I know quite a few "geniuses" who can barely tie their own shoes.

I use myself as an example.  I test very well, but I have this inability to be able to spell consistantly well, and though I have an earned PhD, I have never been able to figure out a way to parlay that into financial superiority.  The best I have been able to do is teach, but I have found great personal pleasure in that profession.  I have a friend, whose IQ might be questionable, who some might consider functionally illiterate (though I know better, he just doesn't like to read) and who is a millionare.  He took a simple thing, raising quail for hunt clubs in the South, and turned it into a multi-million dollar business.

I am thankful that I have learned and have the wisdom to know that there is value in everyone, regardless of intellect or educational achievement.  With age, thankfully, comes wisdom, or at the least the laziness to not care.

[hismikeness]

So to those of you who've had your IQ's tested by more-or-less official means and have taken the bullshit online IQ tests... how accurate are the results of the online ones? I've taken those, from multiple sites, and each time have gotten between 2 or 3 points of the same score. I'm wondering if it has one score, not too high to inflate egos and not too low to crush hopes, that it spits out to submit the test taker to myriad advertisements.  

On that note, however, one of the best and most creative IQ tests I ever took was in college off a website called thespark.com. The site, apparently doesn't exist any more. It had a collection of the "when will you die" and "how fit are you" type tests. The IQ test they hosted was a collection of probably 80-100 true/false questions. The test gave them to you 15 at a time. After about the 7th or 8th page, they would start to repeat. After a while longer they would all have repeated, and there was no more original questions. That's when I hit the x in my browser and went on living my day.

Later, I checked my email and had a results email. Apparently the score of the test was based on how many pages of redundant questions you answered before getting fed up. The record, according to the email, was 3,000 plus (mine was 40ish). Anyway, that calculated my IQ to be 130.

[Davin]

The online IQ tests I think are inaccurate, that is unless I have an IQ of 150-170 (I've taken many of them)... which I'm sure that I don't because when my IQ was tested when I was young was only 142. A friend of mine who had an IQ of around 150 always scored average (around 100) on the online tests. I think the best way is to have a test conducted by a professional. But I still do enjoy taking the online tests.

[Reginus]

In the test I took at my school, I got 137.  Scores I've gotten on online tests have ranged from 122 to 168.

[Kylyssa]

So to those of you who've had your IQ's tested by more-or-less official means and have taken the bullshit online IQ tests... how accurate are the results of the online ones? I've taken those, from multiple sites, and each time have gotten between 2 or 3 points of the same score. I'm wondering if it has one score, not too high to inflate egos and not too low to crush hopes, that it spits out to submit the test taker to myriad advertisements.  

On that note, however, one of the best and most creative IQ tests I ever took was in college off a website called thespark.com. The site, apparently doesn't exist any more. It had a collection of the "when will you die" and "how fit are you" type tests. The IQ test they hosted was a collection of probably 80-100 true/false questions. The test gave them to you 15 at a time. After about the 7th or 8th page, they would start to repeat. After a while longer they would all have repeated, and there was no more original questions. That's when I hit the x in my browser and went on living my day.

Later, I checked my email and had a results email. Apparently the score of the test was based on how many pages of redundant questions you answered before getting fed up. The record, according to the email, was 3,000 plus (mine was 40ish). Anyway, that calculated my IQ to be 130.

I'd have to say that some are quite accurate while others are just junk.