Poll: How smart do you think you are?

[Beautiful End]

I would say I'm REGIONALLY above average. I know more stuff about everything compared to the people who live here in this city.

However, I like to watch Cash Cab, which takes place in New York, and I would have to say that compared to some of the contestants, I would be average or below average.
And there's also the fact that I'm too lazy...

I want to say I would have been smarter if perhaps I would have done thing differently when I was a kid. I was a surprisingly smart kid and now I'm neither one of those. But if I am smart at some degree, I don't like to brag about it. Saying that I was always top ten at school or that I know three languages or that I can play two instruments and stuff doesn't mean a thing because there is always someone who can do better than that and happens to be more humble than I can usually be. And that just proves I'm a retard for pretending otherwise. So no.

If you ask me, IQ doesn't mean you're a genius. It means you're smart, yes, but there's more in life than tests. If someone tells me they have an IQ of 1 million but they don't even know how to change a diaper, I won't be surprised. If someone tells me they have an IQ of over 9000 and also teaches me how to fix my car, I will be so surprised, I won't be able to poop for days, maybe.

i also like to watch that show, and i would say quite a few of the questions are era/regional based questions, because some of the questions i have seen on there are ridiculous and not a single person in my area would know what the hell it was, and if they did it was because it was a very "era" specific question, depending on your age, so while i love cash cab and do quite well alot of the time, sometimes those questions are "what the fuck..who...*person with missing bucked teeth and trashy answers immediately* "

But what surprises me is that some of the questions that make me go "What the shit is he talking about?" are the questions people answer oh so casually. For example, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't even make it past the first round of questions despite my knowledge of whatever. But you've seen how most people make it at least past the first round, strikes or not.
So I would say I'm fairly sure New Yorkers are smarter than people in my area, at least. Hands down.

 

[DarkRyter]

Sadly enough, I have an IQ of 69.

I'm not really sure how I get along as well as I do if I'm that dim.

 

[Phlakes]

My SAT and ACT scores were in at least the top 95% in the nation for each section. Of course that doesn't cover much and I've never taken an IQ test, but I don't really believe in those things.

 

[Echopunk]

I had almost the same experience mentioned above. I was in an academic excellence program in fourth grade. In fifth grade, I received zeros for three assignments in a single day and flunked out of it. The school ordered an IQ test while they were trying to see if I had a learning disability. I scored 186 on the test and was promoted to Gifted classes, much to the chagrin of my former teacher.

My problem has always been application. I get distracted very easily and lose interest. Just about the only thing I've never (yet) burned out on was music, which I seem to see very differently from the people I've worked in bands and projects with. To me music is almost entirely math. I'm pretty terrible at playing by ear, to the point that I usually can't pick out how to play my own songs from a recording, but if I treat a song like a formula, I can remember it forever.

I'd also say my memory is well above average, but only if stored correctly. In college, I was able to memorize the text and pictures from most of my textbooks just by reading them while listening to some music. By the end of my first semester, I'd figured out that all I really had to do to study for a test was to listen to whatever album I'd been listening to when I read the appropriate textbook right before going to class. I was even able to turn the pages in my head (which was invaluable during lab practicals where we had to identify tissue and cell types!). To this day, Sonic Youth's Washing Machine instantly downloads an entire Anatomy and Physiology Textbook into my memory's temporary buffer.

The downside is that I have almost no sense of the passing of time. It literally feels like I graduated high school a couple of weeks ago when it has actually been ten years. It causes some social difficulty as well, seeing that I tend to remember entire conversations (verbatim) with people I may have only had a tangential relationship with. It is also trying in relationships, because I remember everything that transpired, good and bad, albeit without any sense of time attached, so that it is as if years of history with someone are compressed into a few days time.

 

[Semitendon]

I've never taken the official IQ test. But, based on my national average scores in high school, I am in the 80 percentile, or "above average".

However, I would add that on those tests, my math skills were anywhere from slightly below average to slightly above average and my history, comprehension, and geography scores were typically well above average. Which in my opinion is realistically average intelligence, but on paper slightly above average.

I've always gotten pretty good grades in virtually everything I have taken, but I've never studied ( and still don't really know how to "study"), but I don't think it's because I am literally above average, but rather, I am an excellent test taker and know just enough general information to make me a skilled guesser.

 

[manaman]

...I think you're going to see a pretty large number of IQs above 120 around here, because as a gaming forum, The Escapist attracts a lot of nerds, who tend to be pretty intelligent.

Or you know because people lie to feel better about themselves.

Average is average for a reason, and 120 is significantly above average.

I suspect you will find people answering as high as, and above the highest documented IQs. Doesn't make it true. Far, far, far from the truth.

Unless they are using some new fangled system to measure intelligence that actually puts the average around 150. That I would buy.

 

[Dekkaz]

After scoring high 90's on all of my work for school and exams, I can say without humour that school markings are very limited and worthless.

Intellect, I believe, is of the greatest standard of intelligence. Intellect>Intelligence.


By reading most posts, I have made an assumption.

I am way, way above most of my school mates. Yet, on a specific website in which most of higher intellects spend their time, I would regard myself as average, depending on the topic or argument. (IE: I will argue politically/morally to the death, an Anime argument will destroy me.)

A balance of intellect exists. I way down heavily in the history/political/english side of intellect rather than the anime/gaming/computer world that exists here as well.

Sorry if it seems like I am "tooting my own horn".

 

[Udyrfrykte]

Judging from the previous IQ-score thread, a whole lot of users on this site are geniuses of extremely rare quality.
I can believe that most users here are above average though, but not the claim that many make about having an IQ of 150+.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

I might not have been the first to say it, but an IQ test isn't much of an indication of intelligence, it's just a measure of how good you are at IQ tests.

I'm not that intelligent myself, not really stupid, but I wasn't born with any natural talent for maths or science. Just about the only subject I can do is english.

 

[vxicepickxv]

I'm smart enough to know I don't know anything.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

I build my own computers from scratch, got straight A's when I was in college (still dropped out, though. Big mistake, no? xD!).

Still, I don't consider myself to be way smarter then anyone. Just above average.

 

[Eisenfaust]

IQ test only test how good you are at taking IQ tests. They have no bearing in the real world. And, yes, I'm good at them, generally I get between 140-160.

I'm above average. I have a good memory, great common sense, I'm adaptable, and I understand things pretty quickly. Just don't ask me to do math!

Actually, the WAIS tests have always had near perfect correlation to academic performance and other non-standardised measures of intelligence

OT: mine is about 170, as measured by the WAIS-IV. problem is that i suffer from massive sleep deprivation so it's like a foot thick sheet of whale blubber covering my brain... huzzah!

 

[TheLoneBeet]

I'll say slightly above average. I always beat the "average" grade by only a few points in school. Besides that I'm usually referred to as being smart by people at work and a few of my friends. Even so, I'm too modest and self-critical to consider myself above average. I can settle for "slightly" I guess.

 

[DolorousEdd]

It's stupid and meaningless to think about that. That's not to sound smart, it's just self-evident. Even when you're smart doesn't mean you're always right, or when you're stupid that you don't have to think anymore. Also depends on topic and day(time), whom I've met, what I've done...

 

[zehydra]

It depends on what I'm doing. I can think critically with words and concepts, I have a little more difficulty doing abstract thinking quantitatively. That is, I'm better at logic and philosophy and creative problem solving, than Deductive Math and related things.

 

[teebeeohh]

i am of average intelligence, not a genius at math or science or whatever but i can be hard worker is i want to. on the other hand i am rather smart in that i make the right decisions at the right time and it is very easy for me to grasp the basics of whatever i try, on the other hand it's hard for me to get beyond those basics unless i want to.

 

[ultimateownage]

I've spent the last twelve years of my life being pushed into accelerated academic programs and told that I'm of above average intelligence. By that logic, I'm above average. How smart do I think I am?

Not very. I make a lot of stupid choices and I'm pretty lazy, which in itself is a bad choice. I always have felt that I was far inferior to the other "gifted" students around me, but it never really bugged me. Society would peg me as "above average", I think, but I would go lower at around slightly or just plain average.

This, but replace 'last twelve years of my life being pushed into accelerated academic programs' with 'last ten years of my life being pushed into special people classes, and then pushed into accelerated academic programs in a new school'

 

[Sniperyeti]

Look up "the above average effect" on wikipedia or whatever. This is an extremely common phenomenon seen more often in western societies.

 

[lettucethesallad]

Scoring 139 on Mensa's IQ test, I'd say I'm above average, but I'm not some kind of genious. To me there's a lot more to intelligence than numbers and patterns, like critical thinking and eductation. I love finding people more intelligent than me, because it allows me to have conversations with a more abstract chain of thought that may be lost on other people.

 

[Flizzick]

Depends: Book-wise/Fact-wise I'd say I'm definitely above average. However if we were going by social smarts or street smarts I wouldn't hesitate to call myself an idiot.