Took the IQ test. Humbling. Score 110.
IQ test in high school, 156. SAT 793/800 verbal, 783/800 math. Cal Tech. Yatta yatta. But that was many years ago. It's pretty obvious what happened. Timed test. I only finished, in the time, about 2/3 - 3/4 of the questions, maybe a bit more, I didn't keep count. (I skipped questions that weren't popping up right away, thinking I'd come back. Didn't have time.)
I'm 68 years old. I used to be able to hold a conversation on the phone and read a book at the same time, about something completely different. That disappeared when I was in my late 40s. The test requires, for the more difficult problems, testing many different hypotheses, if a clear pattern doesn't pop up immediately. It's almost certain that this takes more time for me now than when I was younger.
This almost certainly impacts my communication skills, for starters.
I wouldn't be humbled just yet, especially if you found some of the problems impossible rather than complicated but doable. A lot of people seem to have got unexpectedly low scores on this test. (And no-one's said 'Wow I usually do really badly on IQ tests but that one gave me a great score')
Go and read http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/how-to-ace-an-iq-test (don't look at the answers, just the methods) and then go back and redo the test. I imagine you'll then get a much higher score.
Then go and work out exactly what and why the answers on that test are as ...
11/26: The survey is now closed. Please do not take the survey. Your results will not be counted.
It's that time of year again.
If you are reading this post, and have not been sent here by some sort of conspiracy trying to throw off the survey results, then you are the target population for the Less Wrong Census/Survey. Please take it. Doesn't matter if you don't post much. Doesn't matter if you're a lurker. Take the survey.
This year's census contains a "main survey" that should take about ten or fifteen minutes, as well as a bunch of "extra credit questions". You may do the extra credit questions if you want. You may skip all the extra credit questions if you want. They're pretty long and not all of them are very interesting. But it is very important that you not put off doing the survey or not do the survey at all because you're intimidated by the extra credit questions.
The survey will probably remain open for a month or so, but once again do not delay taking the survey just for the sake of the extra credit questions.
Please make things easier for my computer and by extension me by reading all the instructions and by answering any text questions in the most obvious possible way. For example, if it asks you "What language do you speak?" please answer "English" instead of "I speak English" or "It's English" or "English since I live in Canada" or "English (US)" or anything else. This will help me sort responses quickly and easily. Likewise, if a question asks for a number, please answer with a number such as "4", rather than "four".
Okay! Enough nitpicky rules! Time to take the...
2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey
Thanks to everyone who suggested questions and ideas for the 2012 Less Wrong Census Survey. I regret I was unable to take all of your suggestions into account, because some of them were contradictory, others were vague, and others would have required me to provide two dozen answers and a thesis paper worth of explanatory text for every question anyone might conceivably misunderstand. But I did make about twenty changes based on the feedback, and *most* of the suggested questions have found their way into the text.
By ancient tradition, if you take the survey you may comment saying you have done so here, and people will upvote you and you will get karma.