Operation of the test

Here we explain the operation of the test.

The course of the test

The test begins with some relatively easy questions that will gradually turn into more difficult ones as long as the person taking the test is able to answer most of them correctly. The test will soon be able to define the level of the person taking the test, and will thereafter present questions that the person will most likely answer correctly approximately 50 per cent of the time.

During the test 35 different pattern recognition problems are presented. The time limit for each of the questions is 45 seconds. If the person taking the test does not answer a question in time the test will automatically move on to the next question and the previous one will be left unanswered.

Calculating the result

Since other people get asked more difficult questions than others, it would naturally be unfair to calculate the final result directly based on the amount of correct answers. The result is therefore calculated by taking advantage of an extensive amount of statistical material that deals with how individuals that have different intelligence quotients have performed in different questions. The person taking the test is then compared to individuals representing the statistical prototypes of people with different intelligence quotients.

Question formulation

The questions of the test have automatically been formulated with a computer software developed especially for this purpose. By changing certain variables the program is able to generate a large variety of questions from very easy to extremely challenging.

Average value and standard deviation

An agreement has been made that the average value of the IQ of all the people is 100. People's intelligence quotients divide around this average value according to standard deviation. However, if we only examine the IQ it can only be told whether the person is more intelligent than the average. Therefore it would always be important to also announce the standard deviation of the distribution.

Two different standard deviations (SD) are widely used. In Europe an SD according to the Cattell distribution is generally used, the numerical value of which is 24. In the United States a Stanford-Binet distribution is common, the SD of which is 16. Intelligence quotients that settle at most one SD away from the average value are considered normal. This means 76-124 at the Cattell distribution and 84-116 at the Stanford-Binet distribution.

The results obtained from this test are scaled in a way that the average value of all of the tests will be 100 and the SD 24. In other words we assume that the people taking the test represent the normal human beings from an intelligence point-of-view. We feel that this assumption is justified since most part of the people taking the test live in countries where practically everyone has an access to the Internet. Thus it cannot be claimed that the ability to reach these pages requires exceptional intelligence. However, we cannot argue with the fact that it is possible that these kinds of tests can be more frequently taken by people who assume they are more intelligent than the others.