AZFNE

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[I lived my entire life without hearing the word 'twee'. It was a reasonably happy and fulfilling life. Outside of a few large perceived omissions, I thought I had everything that I wanted. I may not have had the sportiest, fastest computer, y'know, but it was a good life. No major absences that I did not have a good handle on.

And then C~ and M~ introduced me to twee over dinner a month or so ago. And now everyone is tweeing all day every day. I cannot escape twee; it hunts me down. No matter what I am reading or what we are conversing about, it has suddenly become impossible to communicate without a twee or two. It kind of throws you off your stride.]

Last week, Britain had a televised national IQ test. It was a TV show slash internet test slash heavens only knows what-all. I missed all but the last ten minutes of it. I caught the bit where they were tallying results from those who had participated on the Internet. The hosts were playing fun and silly correlation games. Redheads versus blonds, blue eyes versus brown, boys versus girls, astrological signs versus each other, and so on.

Sagittarius did not fare well on the IQ front. I was actually a bit sad about that, despite being fully bought in on there being no possible connection between the position of the planets and intelligence.

In the studio, they had groups of audiences sitting in different sections; teachers, students, manual labourers, celebrities (only 12, hardly enough for a scientific sample), blonds, and so forth. Then they did the same playoff thing between audience groups. It was funny.

But I missed the online IQ test. Which was okay at the time, because I was afraid of bursting my 'thinking I am not a complete moron' bubble. It is easy to think in general terms that you are not stupid, but if you put a number to it, well, that is something entirely different.

Then I got irritated at myself for being afraid. And if there is anything I am all about, it is forcing myself into confrontations with anything I shy away from.

So at work I hopped online and popped out a few IQ tests.

[Hmm...that does not sound good. Anyone at Saltmine will please disregard the first three words in that last paragraph.]

Of course the Internet offers online IQ testing. It never even occurred to me to think that it might not.

Thus, I submit http://www.intelligencetest.com/ for discussion.

Is the idea of intelligence testing not awkward and divisive enough? Are we not generally happier with broad and qualified divisions like, 'Jimmy is smart, but Sam is a little slow, except in billiards, where Sam kicks ass.'

Is there much of a useful purpose in giving numbers to people? Giving whole numbers to everyone seems to substitute precision for an accuracy that probably does not exist.

Life is more nuanced than a two or three digit number can express. Put me in a quilting club and I am the greatest idiot in the room. Put the quilters on a fencing strip and I will take them all one-handed.

Yes, that may be confusing expertise for intelligence, but did you take the test? It is just a bunch of quick thought puzzles. And that is a learned talent. That was not what I would call being intelligent. Just like crossword puzzles, there is a knack to those little thought games that can be all skill and no intelligence.

Where is the synthesis? Where is the creation of new and interesting permutations?

Then you add in serving up an IQ test over the medium of the Internet, where we expect everything right away, and rigorous testing is reduced, in this case, to 30 T/F questions and a 10-minute timer.

While I am the first to concede that the Internet is the perfect medium for telling me which Xena warrior princess I am, and to analyse my personality based on the occurrence of letters in a text sample, I am not sure that it is the perfect medium for all testing. Certainly not something that people may hang real evaluations of self-worth from.

And this discussion has nothing to do with my 79 score.

They said it would be a miracle if I ever learned to tie a shoe. Ha! I can tie both of them!

[This is the question I missed:

13. Out of the following, E is least like the other designs.
   A Z F N E

I wanted to say True, the question was phrased to push you to a True answer, but I could not figure out why it should be True, so I said False and got it wrong.

When I got my email results, I was on the verge of emailing everyone the question so that someone could please please tell me why E was the odd man out. Then I suddenly saw it, in an 'oh, duh!' moment. All the other letters are three-stroke creations.

Now it drives me nuts that I missed the question. It has been bugging me all week long, and I feel even more stupid than I did before the quiz for missing what turns out to be a really easy pattern identification question. Azfne chases me through nightmares. I should have left well enough alone.]