Edublogger IQ Contest: Preliminary Results, New Shout-out, and Philosophical Close
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Stephen Downes (top) trounced me (bottom) with a 98.98. He is King. (Nice new ‘do, Stephen!):
Diane Cordell (below: top) gave the testers a 180-degree ankle-wrench for misspelling “population” in their results:
And Doug Noon (bottom) “flipped the goat- sucker” with his question: “What is ’smart,’ anway?”:
I thought about Doug’s question myself after taking the quiz*. And I have this much to say for it: 1) it required some knowledge of the wider world; 2) it required the ability to pay attention to wording; 3) it required some lateral thinking; 4) since it didn’t go down on my permanent record, it was harmless fun; and 5) there was something motivational and instructive about learning where I stood relative to others who took the quiz.
One of the weird things about school - at least with teachers who conceal other students’ work by not making it public on a wiki or blog or whatever - is that we rarely get the chance to compare our own performance and skills-level with that of our peers. I didn’t know my writing was any different from others my age until, as a college junior, a professor in a graduate course I was taking told me that most of the graduate student writing in our class was less polished than mine.
(And if you think this is mere bragging, you miss the point, which is this: I may have taken myself more seriously as a writer far earlier in life, if only I had been allowed to learn, by having the opportunity to compare my own writing with that of my peers, that it was one of my relative strengths. How many of our students today don’t realize their strengths, in a similar way, and for similar reasons?)
*Sour Grapes Shout-Out from “The Cerebral Assassin”: I Demand a Rematch!
[Burell grabs microphone, shouts into camera]
This is to you, Downes! And anybody else out there with the yarbles to accept! I didn’t know the speed of the test was counted in the score. So I challenge you all to a rematch! Take the Genius Test and report back on Sunday, your time!
–
Apologies for the wonky formatting. It’s a Blogger column-width thing. I’m going to migrate to WordPress soon.
Photo credits:
top by Stuart R Brown
middle by Prof-B
bottom (”flipping the goat-sucker”) by upeslases
“Cerebral Assassin” by PetroleumJelliffe
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Clay, good answer to my question. This post is excellent; the graphics are really fun. And just for the record, I didn’t know the test was timed, either.
The question of what is smart came up in the car driving home with my two middle schoolers today. My son said that he was given a set of questions to answer in school (kind of like this test, just for fun) with an item that asked, “Which of these is not a planet?” a)Mars; b)Earth; c)Pluto; d)the Moon. He said a lot of kids chose Pluto. He also said he noticed a 1997 copyright date on the bottom of the page, which explained the answer choices for him.
I told him that being smart on a test is it’s own kind of smart. It means figuring out what the test writer wants you to say, not what’s right, or what you really think. Looking for ambiguity and understanding what the test is designed to do helps. And that’s a whole different way of thinking about taking a test than simply trying to answer the questions correctly.
Compliance and a desire to please is often mistaken for intelligence.
Many years ago I read Tom Sawyer to my class of second graders, and it inspired one of the bolder little boys to organize his friends out on the playground to act suspicious so the teacher on duty would “think they were doing something wrong.” He was a thinker, that kid.
[Reply]
Doug Noon
25 Sep 07 at 3:35 am
“Compliance and a desire to please is often mistaken for intelligence.” –that’s a quotable, Doug. Inculcating those two traits in the young is often mistaken for teaching, similarly.
Your son was sharp! Choosing the wrong answer to get the right score! Love it.
Back to the ring.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
25 Sep 07 at 3:44 am
Clay,
Once I saw the time entered as part of my results, I knew I was in trouble.
Does speedy equate to smart? I am a more reflective thinker and don’t always “react” with the same depth of knowledge that is shown by my more considered answers.
In regards to Doug’s comments: an elementary student was asked what color a banana was. He said: white (because the part he eats is white) rather than yellow (the color of the skin) and was marked wrong. His “deeper thinking” probably got him delegated to the “needs help” group!
[Reply]
diane
25 Sep 07 at 8:25 am
I’m a sad, sad edublogger. My stats:
* Your Number Correct: 24/25
* Average Number Correct: 18.41/25
* Percentile: 97.27%
* Time Taken: 1:37
However, I remain convinced that the test is flawed. I don’t believe I missed any– the “trick” questions were pretty obvious.
[Reply]
Chris L
25 Sep 07 at 9:17 pm
Chris, Diane, (nice blogs, by the way, Chris!), doesn’t this all point to what we all know, and Doug touched on already? Tests themselves fail, as a rule.
[Reply]
Clay Burell
26 Sep 07 at 3:46 am
If you go back, you’ll notice I corrected the spelling of ‘population’ when I posted my results.
Not sure if I’ll have time for the other test as I’m on the road…
Besides which, I’ve learned from these tests, someone always does better, always…
[Reply]
Downes
26 Sep 07 at 12:36 pm
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