I’m sure you’ve already heard of an IQ test. They are in many magazines, especially women’s magazines. You can also find them online, just by Googling ‘IQ test’. You will get this page of questions filling your screen and you will have to select your answer online quickly. Then it sends the test, and before it can count to ten, it gets the results: a two- or three-digit number. Clean and simple.

But what exactly is an IQ test? And what does the number mean? IQ stands for ‘Intelligence Quotient’, which means how smart you are. It’s supposed to give you an idea of ​​how well you’ll do in a certain profession or how well you’ll do academically.

The idea of ​​this test is to measure the potential of your brain using problems that are given to you on paper. Evaluates your brain’s ability to find solutions to problems presented to you in written form. Your intelligence is measured against another person. It is a universally used method to measure human intelligence.

The average IQ score is 100. If you took a test and got a score of 136, this means that you are much smarter than the average person. Any score below 100 indicates that your intelligence level does not match the John Doe average.

Advantages of an IQ Test

#1. Employment. Let’s say you’re hiring someone for a new job. You can get a better understanding of the applicant’s intelligence by taking an IQ test. The test could be for logical, linguistic and spatial intelligence. These may be more related to the type of work involved. A high score would indicate that the candidate is suitable for the position. You could eliminate those who don’t make the cut.

#2. Entrance to the university. You could have potential students take an IQ test to measure their intelligence in addition to their SAT scores. This would be useful if there are too few places on the course to accommodate everyone who wants to study. You could pick out the cream of the crop with high IQs and send out rejection slips to those who didn’t qualify.

Disadvantages of an IQ Test

#1. However, IQ tests are far from foolproof. Many people who have taken an IQ test as part of the interview process did not do as well on the job. They didn’t climb high enough or fast enough on the corporate ladder.

#2. College students who initially showed promising scores on their IQ test ended up not as attractive when they took their final papers. Studies have found that a student’s self-discipline is a better indicator of how well they will do in college or high school. Many high IQ people have been outpaced by so-called “weaker” minds with much lower IQs.

IQ tests cannot measure how well you will do as a leader. It does not measure your emotional quotient or EQ – how you will get along with other people, including coworkers, superiors, and peers. So your IQ score may not be the only defining factor of your general intelligence.