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The death of the cat

Basically, I'm not a friend of procrastination - with one exception: Schroedinger's cat. In situations where there is a good chance of killing the cat when lifting the lid, I like to postpone it. I've been stalling a real intelligence test for several years now. On the one hand, the results from self-test books and Internet tests suggested that it would have to be enough for giftedness (> 130), but then you never know. But because Mensa seemed to me to be the last chance to get in contact with like-minded people, there was no other option left as to take the test. Now it was quite short-term and there was a big catastrophe in the company and two 80-hour weeks without a weekend in a row are not exactly the ideal test preparation. For the test itself, the organization was a mess and a hallway with improvised tables is not exactly the ideal environment. In short, the result (126) killed the cat quite spectacularly.

On the other hand, I'm a fan of the MBTI, which is perpetually criticized as not really objective. However, this also applies to the IQ test (IBF-S) used by Mensa, as it essentially examines four areas: German language (which terms fit together, etc.), number series and applied arithmetic, visual perception (find the right cube) and a memorization task, each individually with a time limit. In my case, that was especially silly, because for almost twenty years I've avoided relying on mental arithmetic and my memory, mistakes when adding Euros are just too expensive, there are calculators and lists for that.

As far as I know, an IQ test should be designed so that the exercise effect is as small as possible. But you can improve memorization and mental arithmetic significally with practice, just look at professional dart players who certainly are not necessarily IQ beasts, but have to count their points and the possible finishes in the head. Also, my time management was wrong, I have favored too much speed for precision and one or two minutes left doesn't help anything for find the careless mistakes. For my diverse projects, I always have to assess what my are and most of the time, this assessment is also correct. The test is designed so that 100% correct answers give an IQ of 140. Now maybe there were two of the language tasks where I did not get the answer. With let's say 10% faster mental arithmetic all the computing tasks should work, the cubes anyway and the memory task was not as complicated as you could reduce the 15 x 4 matrix to a 5 x 3 matrix, and there are techniques with which you can do that kind of thing in five minutes. In short: a nearly completely correct test is in the range of possibilies for me. Which value this result has and how valid it is remains an open question and whether that is worth the effort also, you could repeat the test in a year.

What I've also noticed - the test leader was a member of the Mensa: First, the Trier section is not very active. On the other hand, there was a coffee round after the test and both the conversation there and at the Mensa regulars in Cologne where I was once I noticed that the people are tested very intelligent, but somehow that is not everything. Talkative jack-of-all-trades surely weren't to be found. I especially noticed that when it came to improvise tables and chairs in the hall for the test: Nobody else came up with the idea to turn a brochure shelf sideways so that it gets the right height and you can put your legs under it. By the way, I can now explain why statistically INTPs have a higher IQ than INTJs: in theory, the former have Introverted Thinking as their primary function, the latter (means me) Introverted Intuition. For IQ tests, the former is better, because you need to proceed data in a straightforward way. Although introverted intuition provides wonderful ideas and insights, it works subconsciously and thus not "on command", at least not within 18 seconds per task.

The conclusion is again a confirmation that there is something like the "curse of the jack of all trades": You can do virtually everything you want, but only better than 90% (or here 96%) of the population. But to be successful and to be approved, you need 98% or more. Unless there is a zombie invasion and all the specialists get their asses kicked and I build a tank out of junk and joyfully ride it over the zombies, because in that situation it is totally meaningless if there's anyone at the other end of the world who can build a nicer and better tank.

Update: It seems I'm not the only INTJ facefirst in the dirt with that idea: EvelynDoyle: What I learned from failing mensa

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INTJBlog.de am : Hochbegabung und multiple Intelligenz

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Dieses Thema hat so direkt nicht unbedingt was mit INTJ zu tun, indirekt aber schon. Betrachten wir zuerst einmal die klassische Hochbegabung, die mit IQ-Tests gemessen wird. Wer dort mehr als 130 Punkte erreicht und damit zwei Standardabweichungen vom No

INTJBlog.de am : Sapiosexuell ... oder so ähnlich

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ich schreibe diesen Blog ja auch, weil INTJs mehr oder weniger mit den gleichen Problemen konfrontiert sind, wenn es um die Interaktion mit der Welt geht. Da ich regelmäßig als hardcore-INTJ teste, so mit Werten oberhalb der 80% und ja noch dazu den Fluch

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