“Know yourself” is an ancient adage.
“Know your IQ.” is modem craze.

The Greeks bequeathed to us the former. The British bequeathed to us the latter. It was left to the Americans to make a scientific fad out of them.

“Modern psychoanalysts believe”, says H. J. Eysenck “nevertheless there is no doubt that most people have an Intense interest in their own personality, temperament, intelligence, traits, abilities, complexes, and so forth.”

What Is IQ?
It is wrong to believe that IQ tests are developed and constructed according to a rational derived from sound scientific theory. There are also some difficulties encountered in going from the ivory tower to the market place. But there is no such thing as alleged inapplicability of psychological science to practical problems of applied life.

IQ tests, right from the beginning, have been outstandingly successful in their practical application. The evidence on this part is overwhelming. Useful measurements can be undertaken even in the absence of a sound theoretical basis.

Temperature, for example, can be measured in subjective terms. This was enunciated by the physicist Dolbear, in 1297, working with snowy tree cricket. His formula runs as follows: “Count the number of chirps this animal produce in fifteen seconds and add forty; the sum is the temperature obtaining at the time in degree Fahrenheit.”

It was the French psychologist, Binet, who cane up with the theory that mental abilities and functions should be measured by means of mental tests (IQ tests) clearly involving these functions and abilities. In 1904 the Ministry of Public Instruction in Paris appointed a commission to study procedures for the education of mentally sub-normal children attending Paris schools, and it was in response to this practical demand that Binet prepared his first scale.

Binet constructed a series of thirty problems or test which were meant to call for judgment, comprehension and reasoning. The problems were of such a nature that these could be understood and solved without benefit of special school learning.

For example:
“This is a garden in which you have lost your ball. This gap represents the entrance. Use your pencil to show we how you would search for the ball”

Any systematic search, i.e., in ever-decreasing circle or going up and down along parallel paths, is counted a correct solution. While a vague wandering about is considered incorrect.

The problems varied widely in difficulty, and Binet graded them from the easiest to the most difficult by noticing the percentage of right answers given by the various group of children.

Einstein failed an examination that would have allowed him to pursue a course of study leading to a diploma in electrical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany on March 1879, to Hermann Einstein and his wife Pauline. His father was a featherbed salesman. When he was around 5 years old, his quest to investigate the natural world had started, receiving his first compass. As he failed, he spent a year at the Cantonal Secondary School. Thereafter he joined back the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, where he graduated, in 1900 as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics.

After two years he was posted at the Swiss Patent office in Bern. Albert married Mileva in January 1903. At this time his father became ill and died in 1905. On June 30^th 1905, Einstein submitted one of his papers “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” to the University of Zurich, to obtain a Ph.D. degree. In 1908, he sent a second paper to the University of Bern and became a lecturer there. A year after, he became an associate professor of physics at the University of Zurich.

In 1912, he was given a position as professor of theoretical physics at ETH. In quick succession he held professorships at the German University of Prague and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. In 1914 Einstein became a director at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, the most prestigious post that a theoretical physicist could hold in central Europe.

In 1922, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for 1921. In 1933, he got a post at the Institute of advance Study.

Finally on 16^th of April 1955, the world witnesses the sad demise of Einstein.

INTELLIGENCE is an ability to understand. Various tests have been developed to examine one’s intelligence. The score obtained by a person in such tests is termed as QUOTIENT. Thus we can say that an ‘IQ TEST’ is designed to measure the ‘INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT of those undergoing it.

DOES EDUCATION, AGE, EXPERIENCE OR HERIDITY AFFECT IQ?

Education:

It is said that, the more educated you are, the higher IQ you have. This may not always be true. Education helps one to gain knowledge in certain specified fields which he/she chooses to study. As for example: English, science, geography, etc. In this regard one can become a genius in answering questions of a related field. However if he is posed with a much simpler question relating to common sense, he may find himself in a fix. As for example: If a room contained many stockings thrown at random and the stockings were of three different colors, what is the least number of stockings one would have to collect to be sure of getting a matching pair? Such a question would require more of common sense than education. Thus it is evident that if a person is educated it by no means implies that he has common sense or a higher IQ.

Age

According to many, intelligence increases with age. It is however foolish to believe that an older person has a higher IQ than a younger person. Obviously people who are older have a greater knowledge of the events which they have seen being present at that time compared to those who were not even born at the time of happening of a certain event. It is obvious that a person who has witnessed certain historical event or at least was present during that era is likely to remember the event better than a person who has mugged it up from his history book. Thus it can be said that a person can gain experience with age and use it to draw logical conclusions.

Experience

An experienced person is likely to solve various puzzles and quizzes more quickly than a person who has never encountered such questions ever in his life. This is because an experienced person has answered such questions so many times that he has now become a genius at it. Thus we can say that the more diversified the experience, the greater will be the ability to understand.

Heredity

Heredity and environment have an extensive effect on IQ. If a child is born to intelligent parents, it is very likely that it will be highly intelligent, provided that it is brought up in an intellectual environment. If the child is brought up in an intellectual environment then its intelligence will be nurtured and improved. On the other hand if it is brought up in an adverse environment then it might loose its intelligence.

Thus ‘INTELLIGENCE’ is the ability to reason in a logical and rational way and, from that reasoning to gain understanding. So taking up an IQ TEST at would be a good idea to find out your IQ score.