IQ tests are tests which attempt to measure intelligence - where intelligence - subject to some contention, is defined as mental ability to among other things, solve problems, comprehend idea, learn new things and benefit from experience.
Attempts at testing intelligence have been with us for quite a long time. Ancient China for example, had an examination system (which really was some sort of an intelligence testing mechanism) and which was employed in the recruitment of civil servants during the Han Dynasty.
Intelligence testing as we know it by that specific name however has its roots in the work of a Frenchman called Alfred Binet early in the 20th century. History has it that Binet - who had established himself as a force to recorn with in psychology in France by that time had been given an assignment by the French government to develop a test that could reasonably predict given children’s potentially for educational achievement. The end result of Binet’s work was what he referred to as the Binet-Simon intelligence scale which was for long was used to ‘measure intelligence’
There have been many developments in the field of intelligence testing since Binet first formally ventured into the field. In fact, the very term IQ test (intelligence quotient) testing has been overtaken by these developments. As it were, when the term IQ test was coined, intelligence was then measured as a ratio of ‘mental age’ and ‘chronological age’.
Simply speaking, there were tasks that were considered apt for a given age and intelligence quotient which was measured by the IQ tests then could be calculated at Mental age/Chronological age x 100. In this case, a child of 10 years who could undertake tasks considered apt for a child of 12 had an intelligence quotient of 120, because 12/10×100 is equal to 120. Ideally, a person could only successfully undertake mental tasks apt for their age, and if a person could do mental tasks beyond their chronological age (e.g. the 10 year doing tasks apt for a 12 year old) was considered remarkably intelligent.
Another 10 year old doing tasks apt for a 14 year old would be even more intelligence and so on and so forth. Obviously, this method of measuring intelligence faced a number of challenges as it proves inadequate for measuring intelligence beyond a given age - because, as we know that (the supposed) intelligence does not just go on increasing with age - and in fact starts declining at a certain age. Modern IQ tests therefore tend to measure the subject’s standard deviation from established means (sort of midpoints) - since it has been established that intelligence in a given sample of people, like many other phenomena, if properly tabulated would form a curve and it is the deviations from the midpoints of that curve which is what is measured by modern IQ tests.
IQ tests and the whole notion of IQ testing have not been without controversy. There is contention, for example, on whether it is really possible to measure human intelligence - given that there is not even consensus on definition of the very term intelligence. The tests employed to measure intelligence have also been criticized for being biased towards certain social groups - especially after a prominent scientist in mid 20th century came up with the argument that certain races were intellectually superior to other races - an argument he backed with data obtained from IQ tests - and which was contested on account that items included in IQ tests give undue advantage to economically privileged (and thus well exposed) social groups - hence their apparent higher IQ test scores.
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