IQ tests are assessments individuals take to measure how smart they are, but I don’t think they are a valid way to measure intelligence. IQ tests determine how well someone can use information and logic to answer questions. People see this as an accurate way to tell how smart someone is; however, there are many ways to define smart, and IQ tests only measure one version.
People can be considered school smart, where they are smart when it comes to logic and using information, which is what IQ tests are meant to measure. Other people are street smart, where people know things outside of school. If IQ tests are intended to measure someone’s school smarts, those who are street smart suffer and it’s unfair to judge someone lacking intelligence in one area without seeing what they thrive in. People are smart in different ways; whether they are smart in movies, education, logic, or thinking outside the box, their intelligence varies from subject to subject.
People also take questions and answer things differently, seeing them from a different perspective. Not everyone is going to think about a question in the same way. The majority of people will have different answers to the same question, whether it’s a major or a minor difference. It’s just how people are. If someone doesn’t have enough space to take something into the house, one person might go to the house and drop the things they are holding before returning. Another person might take the challenge and take the item anyway. Another might wait for help from a family member or significant other. It’s the same problem with different solutions, leading to the same result.
Taking an IQ test is like taking a math test in a strict teacher’s classroom, you could use other methods and find a different solution to a problem, but the test will consider you wrong just because you used a method it didn’t like. Overall, IQ tests don’t test someone’s real intelligence, just their school intelligence and they don’t consider one’s intelligence outside of an educational setting.
