YSK - IQ is a measure of your academic potential, not your intelligence.

Nearly everything about this post is completely wrong.

Modern intelligence tests measure many things - your analytical ability, your spatial reasoning ability, your arithmetic ability, your pattern recognition skills, your processing speed, your short-term and long-term memory, your language skills, your physical manipulation skills etc.

These measure exactly your intelligence.

An athlete will have good processing speed, and that's what gets measured. A musician would have good short-term memory, pattern recognition, and physical manipulation skills. A linguist will have good language and pattern recognition skills etc.

A properly administered IQ tests baselines you based on where your strengths lie. E.g., if you have poor short term memory or poor spatial reasoning skills, then you find ways to compensate for that or choose careers where you can excel. There are other elements at play (e.g., priming) and you can learn to excel in areas through practice, or you can choose to use your strengths to your advantage.

I am not an athlete, but I do play video games and ride motorcycles. Even so my processing speed is average. That explains why all the sports I chose to pursue were not based on processing speed, such as climbing. On the other hand, I play the violin and speak multiple languages, so my pattern recognition skills and my short-term memory are great. I am really bad at spatial manipulation, which is why I get lost all the time. However, I am good at math, so my arithmetic and analytical skills are good. So my choice in careers have sort of been based on what I am good at.

Source: My wife is doing her doctorate in cognitive psych and I have been the subject of some of these tests. You are completely and utterly wrong. Your post is absolute b.s.

/r/YouShouldKnow Thread