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Brain Fitness Training – Mastering The Mensa IQ Test

03.31.2009 · Posted in Career Articles

Through the coincidental interests of two men on a train ride in England, the idea for a society of those with high IQ emerged. Lawyer Roland Berrill and scientist Lance Ware discovered a shared interest in intelligence tests. Later that year, just after the end of the Second World War that they founded Mensa (named for the Latin words for table, mind, and month).nn[I:0:J]Alfred Binet devised IQ testing as a way to assess the intellectual capacity of French schoolchildren. Although skeptics have held that IQ testing is narrow or irrelevant the process remains relevant and increasingly widespread for spotting learning dysfunctions, giftedness, academic aptitude and even career aptitude. As the largest such organization in the world, Mensa now has tens of thousands of members.nnWe all have a sense that some people figure things out more quickly or more successfully than others. An IQ test aims to measure this ability in a reliable way. To gain entry to Mensa one must score in the top 2% on any one of a number of standardized tests – these include Mensa’s own IQ test, the Cattell III B (scoring above 148), Culture Fair (132), Ravens Advanced Matrices (135), Ravens Standard Matrices (131), Wechsler Scales (132).nnSome IQ tests (such as the Ravens matrices) test one’s spatial and analytical abilities using non-verbal questions only. Psychologists sometimes deem these tests “culture fair” because they don’t require an extensive vocabulary or acquired learning. Other IQ tests include questions that present verbal analogies or puzzles that test comprehension and mathematical ability.nnMensa provides an excellent quick assessment of IQ aptitude on its website (www.mensa.org). The Mensa IQ Test, IQ Workout gives you instant feedback. While this and other Internet practice tests can give a sense of your IQ, all tests have some margin of error, and an on-line test will not be as accurate as a recognized, moderated test.nnIf you’re interested in applying to Mensa, the question quickly becomes “will I get in?” Aiming for the top 2% sounds like quite a hurdle. But if you think that in a room of fifty people, on average one of them will be in that top 2%, it perhaps seems less daunting. And even if you fall somewhat below the top 2% all hope is not lost.nnScientists from the Universities of Michigan and Bern last year hypothesized that we might increase our fluid intelligence by training our working-memory. Since working-memory processing competes for brain power with raw problem-solving ability, increasing one would leave more brain power for the other, they presumed. To test this theory, the scientists devised a novel training method that progressively stretched and strengthened visual and aural working-memory at the same time.nnTesting participants’ fluid intelligence before and after training using standard IQ test questions, they eliminated any skew from familiarity with the test by comparing results to those of a group who hadn’t received any training. The study not only showed that fluid intelligence can increase with working-memory training, the degree of increase was dramatic. With 19 days of training, the fluid intelligence scores for each person in the trained group increased by at least 40% more than those in the non-trained group.nnUpon reading about these results my company set about making the training available as a software program (Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro). Mind Sparke customers have indeed raised their IQ scores (some by more than twenty points) and have also reported a wide variety of complimentary benefits to their self-awareness, concentration, memory, and musical ability.nnMensa allows people from diverse cultures and backgrounds to come together to share their common gift of intellectual acuity. If you think you might enjoy such a stimulating environment, I would urge you go ahead and give it a try. I wish you the very best in your bid to make the top two percent – with training or without.

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