Relsqui comments on (Virtual) Employment Open Thread - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Will_Newsome 23 September 2010 04:25AM

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Comment author: itsunder9000 24 October 2010 11:36:44PM 1 point [-]

Want some brutally truthful tests designed to see how competent you are?

Take the SAT test, , which measures math ability, and verbal ability. Find a few psychology tests that try and measure memorization ability(like, how quickly and well you can memorize a topic)

Why? Because real world success, in intellectual endeavors, is largely a combination of how large your fluid intelligence is+memorization ability+ work ethic. The rest is due to combos of other factors.

Besides the SAT, you can take the LSAT, and study for a few things on there that require specific knowledge. The test is the single largest predictive factor of success in law school, and blind tests of competence.

There are a few other tests you can take. I recommend the AMC, which requires studying some topics outside of the regular school curriculum, but not too much.

Or, you could play starcraft for 3 months, and see how high you end up ranking.

Beyond these,I don't know of many good tests to see how competent you are.

Comment author: Relsqui 30 October 2010 01:02:46AM 0 points [-]

Take the SAT test, , which measures math ability, and verbal ability

and wealth.

Comment author: itsunder9000 30 October 2010 05:10:34AM 0 points [-]

Read "the bell curve"

basically, smart parents were more likely to go to a higher ranking school, and move themselves up in the social heirarchy.

Smart people tend to have smart kids. Dumb people tend to have dumb kids. Hence, the scores.

For the race aspect of this, you can find the stats where poor east asian kids do better than rich white kids.At least on the math portion.

Comment author: topynate 30 October 2010 01:58:41AM *  0 points [-]

Yeah, but that only matters from a self-assessment standpoint if the causal graph is wealth --> score <-- ability, whereas for an uncoached entrant it's almost purely wealth --> ability --> score.

Comment author: Relsqui 30 October 2010 03:38:49AM 0 points [-]

Fair enough.

Comment author: lmnop 30 October 2010 02:04:50AM *  0 points [-]

whereas for an uncoached entrant it's almost purely wealth --> ability --> score.

And coaching can't make up a large part of the score difference, either. There's more than 100 points discrepancy on Critical Reading or Math alone between the lowest and highest income groups, whereas coaching only creates improvements of 30 points in Reading and Math combined.