Intelligence Quotient

We all like to brag about our IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, and how high it is and what the score is. But how many of us have actually given the right kind of IQ test and know our exact Intelligence quotient…? Lets know more about the intelligence quotient.

It first started off in the year 1905 when two French psychologists, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon conceptualized the first ever intelligence tests to gauge the mental age of people, mostly children. They first got the idea and worked on it by separating children who have difficult in school from those who do well in school. And from then on, the Intelligence Quotient test has evolved and there has been no looking back. Now that we know the history of the intelligence quotient test and how it evolved, let us understand what exactly Intelligence Quotient or IQ is.

Understanding Intelligence Quotient
Intelligence Quotient or IQ is a number or a count of the intelligence of a person. In a standard IQ test, a person’s quotient of intelligence is compared and determined on the basis of the scores of other on the same test. These days more and more people are relying on IQ tests for a lot of reasons. IQ tests have become a parameter for educational institutes and corporate offices in conjunction with personality tests. Intelligence Quotients are used by people to find out a person’s mental age, which is the persons understanding levels and performance capabilities at a particular age. A Standard IQ test would consist of tasks that involve the use of mental ability and vary on their difficulty levels. The test includes gauging of memory, reasoning power, numerical capability, definitions and scope of recalling data. Psychologists have determined a given age at which people can correctly answer questions in an IQ test. Lets take an example for better understanding, suppose a 12 year old is giving a test, if he answers the questions at par with a 15 year old, then his mental age is that of a 15 year old, and it can be said that he has a high IQ.

Determining and Calculation Intelligence
Though we have earlier said that a person’s IQ depends on his or her mental age, it is essential to know that it does only depend on the mental age, there are a lot of factors involved. Initially the IQ was determined and calculated by diving the mental age of a person by the actual age and then multiplying it by 100 so as to avoid fractions, which can be confusing. Lets understand this by use of an example, a 10 year old has the mental age of 13, by dividing 13 by 10 and multiplying it by 100, you would get an IQ of 130, which is high. On the other hand, if this scenario were reversed, a 13 year old having the mental age of a 10 year old would have an IQ of 77, which is relatively low. This method was used till 1960, after that all IQ tests were determined by giving them a score of 100. And depending on this, they were said to have high or low intelligence quotients.

IQ tests are like mentioned being used by schools, colleges, universities and even corporate organizations, to know how well a person can progress and hold up under pressure of school work or professional work. Though IQ tests have their disadvantages and there is no denying its benefits and use.