Have you ever wondered about your IQ Score or maybe got it checked? What is this Intelligence Quotient and can we really tell if some people are super smarter to others, based only on the IQ Score results?
Well, it is not that simple, but IQ Score testing could reveal important information, especially useful when selecting candidates for specific employment positions, those related to education or so.
In the following paragraphs, we will talk more on IQ tests and their development, the application and specific score meanings.
Finally, we will focus on the category IQ 131 Score falls in.
If you are a lucky one with this result, this might be an interesting talk. Let us first see into basis of IQ Score testing and the meaning of results.
Intelligence Quotient Testing History
How it all began and why would people try to test someone’s intelligence in the first place and compare results?
It is, perhaps, in our nature to count, measure, compare things. We do this with everything; it helps us organize the world, no matter how silly it might seem, since the same place often appears chaotic.
IQ Score testing initially designed for educational purposes and then turned into a selective one. Either way, it found its use in many fields.
Binet-Simon IQ Testing
Intelligence Quotient is closely associated with education and it was exactly why the test was invented in the first place. It started in France, in the early twentieth century. It was the first time that the government decided that every child should get educated, so they have passed the law stating so.
They wanted the system to be adjusted to different children abilities, so they needed a test to make it all work.
Alfred Binet, the French psychologist, was the one to invent the IQ test for the purpose. The very purpose of categorizing levels of intelligence was to determine which children would need educational assistance.
Binet and his associates created the intelligence testing that was not based solely on educational ground. He rather proposed analyzing memory abilities, task solving abilities and the matter of each individual’s attention.
What Binet wanted is to find the predictor to success in terms of education and all that it opens up. Binet’s result showed that not all the kids have the same level of attention or the same speed in finding solutions.
The testing proved that some younger kids could be quicker and more skillful than older ones. This lead Binet to propose the mental age category, which not necessarily corresponds with the life age. Binet and his colleague Theodore Simon created these first tests.
All future tests were based upon this initial one. Binet-Simon testing had its flaws and holes, of which the creators were aware. They themselves claimed that a single factor could not be used to measure the level of human intelligence, since it is complex and affected by numerous things.
For example, life circumstances, personal background and the environment itself have a great impact upon intelligence development in kids.
Stanford-Binet IQ Testing
Once introduced into the United States, Binet’s test awakened great interest and potential for further development.
Americans standardized the test for their own citizens, after applying it in the USA.
This standardized American version is known as Stanford-Binet IQ test, since it was Stanford University to make it happen.
Stanford-Binet test results were expressed by a single number of IQ score. This test became a norm in 1916.
Army IQ Testing
Soon the world faced a global conflict, the First World War. Great number of army recruits had to go through intelligence tests, in order to find them an appropriate position within the army. We are talking about the USA army.
They invented what we know as Army Alpha and Beta tests. The first test came in written form, while the other was based on images, since there were many recruits who did not know English or simply could not read.
After the war, Alpha and Beta tests continued to be a practice, but their use was controversial.
For example, these tests were applied on immigrant population, which lead to mass discrimination and allowed the government to pass on all kinds of restrictive rules and else over immigrants. We could say the tests were misused in this way.
Wechsler IQ Testing
Other experts were in agreement with Binet’s notion that human intelligence cannot be measured and marked by only one factor. There have to be multiple categories that would do the best to systematize the intelligence and give final IQ result.
David Wechsler, the American psychologists decided to adjust the initial test so that it become more reliable and thorough. He created WAIS test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.
Wechsler also created tests that could measure children’s intelligence, separately from WAIS test. The WAIS test was invented in 1955. and revised to become known as WIS. This new test was consisted of several categories.
Parameters included were about verbal comprehension, working memory, processing speed and perceptual reasoning. The results were compared within the same group age.
All these tests are controversial and neither could actually sum up the whole of human intelligence. Intelligence quotient testing is tricky and it leads to many questions unanswered.
For example, those of differences between men and women, people of certain cultural background compared to others and so on.
All of these lead to controversies and question the reliability of IQ testing and scores.
What is an average IQ score?
The score that counts IQ 100 is considered the average. Test scores are divided into ranges that illustrate each individual’s score potential and abilities, as predictors of success in life, based on the educational potential in the first place. The average score does not reveal much, though.
The problem is it proposes the idea of average reasoning ability and not outstanding ability for problem solving.
This sounds as if an average IQ score does not leave an individual many options for further development or success. However, it is not all so black and white. The thing is IQ score could not express that one’s capabilities.
For example, someone who is not a ‘genius’, in terms of IQ Score results, could become an impressive artist or a musician or a sportsperson. Therefore, IQ score cannot tell about some rather fantastic personal skills.
An individual who scores average on the IQ test could be much above the average in other aspects of human capacities. Although those are not marked as intelligence, it is hard to tell if it has nothing to do with it.
Those could only be different types of human intelligence. Certain studies also prove that an average score could be upgraded with life experience.
Another factor that seems very important in actual manifestation of someone’s intelligence level is that of emotional intelligence, otherwise regarded as EQ score. EQ score definitely has a great impact upon our individual capacities and our actual use and application of those.
It even seems to be of greater importance compared to IQ score. Lack of emotional intelligence seems to undermine potential of even very high IQ.
IQ bellow the average scale is also not a guarantee of not being successful in life. The same is the other way around; a very high IQ does not mean all will simply come out great. You cannot expect your IQ works for you on its own.
There are also things like patience, effort, investment, diligence, dedication, focus and much more.
IQ Scores and Real Life Manifestation
Before we reveal true potential of your IQ Score of 131, let us briefly go through all the ranges that an IQ testing proposes, so to better understand the meaning of it all.
As we have already said, a ‘genius’ score does not guarantee success in life, just as an average score does not mean one would be average in all fields of life.
Now follow brief descriptions of all IQ ranges and their actual real life functioning meaning.
The lowest range on the IQ scale counts below 20 units. This range is called ‘profound retardation’. This range is usually physically visible, for people within it are handicapped and heavily dependent on others. They live shorter and need all the assistance from others.
The next range is between 20 and 34 and it stands for ‘severely retarded’. Severely retarded people could learn some very basic self-care.
They are, however, dependant, not employable in the most cases, cannot learn language easily and commonly show with motor difficulties. The first two rangers are usually due to brain injuries of the fetus or in the earliest stages of life. This is not a matter of genetics.
The next IQ range is between 35 and 49 and it stands for ‘moderately retarded’.
Moderately retarded individuals are capable of learning basic skills and could even be employed. They need specific form of education. It is possible they have self-awareness.
Most of intelligent animas are within this range (dolphins, crows, chimpanzees for instance). They are in ‘childhood’ range IQ score, very immature for adults.
Those within the range of 50 to 69 are considered ‘mildly retarded’. They would do best in the supervised setting, although they could do on their own. They could be employed, under supervision.
These individuals could be socially adjusted, although immature. This range is associated with inheritance and genetics; it has nothing to do with brain damage or so.
‘Borderline retardation’ counts 70 to 70 on the IQ scale. Borderline retarded people are capable of learning simple tasks. They usually have problem with everyday routine stuff, such as using everyday devices. They require supervision in doing tasks.
The next range is just below average, from 80 to 89 and it allows for normal functioning without special supervision.
The range between 90 and 99 is average, which means these people are capable of independent functioning that also involves decision-making. Range between 100 and 109 is average; this opens up the ability of learning from written sources.
Ranges 110 to 119 and 120 to129 are both ‘above average’. They correspond with bachelor and master’s degree.
IQ 131 Meaning
The next range is what is called ‘gifted’ and it counts from 130 to 139. IQ score of 131 falls under this range. What does it mean to be gifted?
People within the range are usually labeled as very intelligent people, with high education, capable of mastering complex materials and sources and inventing their own. The range corresponds with PhD degrees.
What is very important to note is that a ‘gifted’ IQ 131 Score person does not have to be very quick or super smart, in colloquial terms. They could, for example, write a novel, an original piece of scientific work or so.
Some of them are slower, but unbelievably intuitive, which helps their intelligence finds its amazing application in real life.
IQ of 131 often manifests with brilliant logic and the ability of a profound philosophical approach to life. These people are commonly capable of solving complex algebra challenges very early in life, but not all of them.
It does not mean you have to be a mathematic genius if you have a score within the range of ‘gifted’.
At the end of the day, it is what ‘gifted’ means; one could be very in one field and someone else in the other.
What they do have in common is the ability of studying from multiple sources, analytical approach to things, the ability to systematize knowledge and usually rich imagination and the ability practically to apply ideas in real life.