How intelligent do you believe you are?

Around two standard deviations above the world average. Intelligent, but not intelligent enough to actually achieve anything noteworthy.

I was borderline passing all of my tests from year 7 to year 11 and my school did some sort of intervention with me because they thought I was stupid and going to drop out. I'm in third year at a top university, have a 90+ average unit grade yet feel that nothing has changed in my mind. Does anybody else feel like a fraud?

I have a Mensa card, I got it when I was 15. Depression is taking it's toll. I'm still far more intelligent but it probably rounds under 130 when you include all the chinks and poo-in-loos running around.

P.s. I failed high school, got my GED, fucked up a job because my body is garbage, and started college. Due to withdrawing/failing some classes repeatedly and fucking up timing, I will be graduating a uni (transferred) with a BS at 27, starting at 21. Six years total for my BS (Electrical Engineering, actually a REALLY EASY Engineering compared to all or almost all the others afaik). I'm not talking metaphorically easy. My MechE roommate was doing like 8 hours a day for two weeks to finish his semester. I had one project that took like 20hours total.

SAT/ACT are acceptable iproxies f you did not pre-process for them

I'm pretty mediocre. I used to think I was smart but lazy but college showed me I'm at best slightly above average and lazy.

>160 IQ reporting in

lmao be mad brainlets that yo uwon't ever accomplish anything in your pathetic lives, enjoy being just bottomfeeders who make no contributions to any important fields

dumbass here reporting in

Im smart, but I know Im never the smartest person in my courses.

a) I have never taken an official test, b) I'd estimate around 145.

My IQ is 75 and...

and..

What were we talking about?

my iq is 20/20

No, that's ADHD, Anonymous. I'm and have the short term memory of a goldfish. I've literally forgotten where my phone is when I was holding it in my hand before.

so you have potential, yes? Just your patheticism got in the way.

>be 11
>teachers get the impression i'm above average
>they talk with my mom and have me do a test after school one day (the WISC i think)
>get max score of 140
>thats a big deal

i've never felt smart, but damn the expectations that got put on me after that were too much man. i just wanted to play pogs with the normal kids.

I think my IQ is probably like 190+ but it's probably more like 135 with some super aspergers thrown in

>stupid as fuck
>have potential

just to give you an example of the level of intelligence i inherited, my mother believes god speaks to her in her dreams, she constantly claims to have foreseen some of the events that have happened in her life.

I don't like the fact that i'm stupid and a failure, but i find solace in the fact that this is true for lots of people, i'm not alone.

I don't know how, but I guess I sort of won gene lottery.

I'm unlike everyone in my family, taller than everyone, well-built, good looking guy, the first person in 20 years and second in family who got Masters Degree.
Finished two degrees, in two top unis in my country. I speak 5 languages. Left my home when i was 15, moved to other city on my own to study in a better highschool.
I took few tests in hs and secondary school, all said I'm in the top, but no numbers. When I was 20 I took mensa test. Got 156 points. Thought MENSA is just a funclub for which membership you have to pay. Never joined.

I wish I chose more engineer-like path instead of focusing on social studies. All these theories and abstract ideas and discusssions has never been my thing. I'm a pragmatist.

But i always perceived myself as slightly above average. I have many ideas and interest in a variety of things, I just never manage to get to it. So I will probably waste most of my time on Earth.

I was like you until I realized that the "abstract and basic" ideas of math are so powerful that they can explain everything

Feynman was a little under 2 SD above average

Hope for us "hard working" brainlets

Yeah, I never understood proofs and their need in math. Even some basics ones like Pitagoras' triangle proof. I understand the idea, by I would never be able to prove it.

Feynman didn't see what he did as work. He saw it as being like a game.

Oh well in that case I don't understand why I don't have my Nobel yet I swear to god if they wait and do it posthumously I'll kill myself

Well not exactly but close. A phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect explains it quite well. From Wikipedia of course : The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. Their research also suggests corollaries: highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence and may erroneously assume that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others

Dunning and Kruger have postulated that the effect is the result of internal illusion in the unskilled, and external misperception in the skilled: "The miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

ITT: humblebrag

I mainly post on /g/, just happened upon here today. I am a compsci major in college. I haven't taken an IQ test but I took a Johnson O'connor test and scored very high in spatial ability and musical ability. I have a pretty good vocabulary and believe I have poor mathematical ability. Despite this I skipped a grade in my math and English classes in middle school based on my state test scores and did pretty well but I had to work for my grades in math. I definitely enjoy mathematics though, I really like calculus and appreciate the beauty of mathematics. Math is beautiful like origami, there is beauty in an efficient and creative solution. I enjoy the process more then the end result. I did really quite complex origami when I was very young, and learned to draw with perspective around that time as well. My parents thought I was really smart because of it but I kind of just did what was easy for me. I am unfortunately lacking in my critical thinking in many respects and rely on intuition to operate a lot, so it is difficult for me to explain my thought process on a number of things. I am meticulous with my work and it takes my a long time to write or solve challenging problems, I will make many mistakes and have to rewrite and erase, though the end result is generally quite sound. In my college tests I would be one of the last to turn in my test but would generally score well. I have a strong interest in computers and would consider myself fairly knowledgeable with programming and Linux. Personality-wise I tested as INTP. That is my winding story that only really half answers the question; I don't really know if I'm smart but I take pride in what I am good at and feel pretty badly about my lacking in mathematical ability and how slow I can be at completing tasks. I guess now I will go to sleep.

as an addendum I would say that I took the Johnson O'Connor test a couple years ago to try and help me decide on my career path, but my aptitudes really don't suggest a strong direction which is somewhat disheartening but I accept I will have to work on areas of whichever path I choose

nothing annoys me more than naming an observation of the natural world after yourself. Especially if it's two people. It just begs insecurity, ironic for DK

how would you kill yourself if you were already dead?

Good way to become immortal tho.

Huge doubts.

You arent some outlier in human intelligence.

>if you did not pre-process for them
What's this mean?

always been top 5% of my class in math, average af everywhere else

What does it mean if you scored in the 1500s on the SAT without preparing?

And IQ of 145 is like +3 sigma which is about the top thousandth percentile, so it's not that ridiculous. I'm pretty smart though, I'm in a crazy honors physics program and everything.

Also I got a 720 on my SAT verbal back I guess five years ago now which by 's chart places me right around +3.

See

I don't think it's that rare.

Anyone who tries hard likely does it because they believe they are least not as good as their reputation.

When I was at university my nickname was God because people believed I was so smart. Of course I studied like fuck and when someone asked me question I knew the answer because I already spent many hours researching and thinking about it.

Even in online games I practice a lot so I can appear to be effortlessly good at games.

"Smart but lazy" "has potential" "under achiever" "try hard" all of that just means dumb. True intelligence is the ability to solve truly novel problems, without relying on familiarity or experience.

>When I was at university my nickname was God

Sounds like your idea of true intelligence is partly derived from other people's inflated ideas about you. Give yourself some credit. At a college level absolutely no one can pass the exam without some exposure to the material beforehand.

no more immortal than we already are
human society goes extinct eventually
our behaviours are recorded forever, so all that is left after extinction is the past. You have no point

(Not that user)

In primary school my brother's nickname was "The Oracle"...

As for how intelligent I am, I don't know. I'm often trying to figure it out, dunno why I'm insecure though.
I read a lot in primary school. Harry Potter before I was 7. Not high literature but that's what I chose, I guess.. anyway my reading age was 14+ throughout junior school, not that I know what that means. English was the thing I stood out at. English and drawing.
In secondary school this continued until I started watching popsci documentaries on physics which made me intensely curious. In GCSE/A-level I asked a lot if tangential questions & was best in the class. Though I hated A-level because it was just so fucking easy and slow-paced. Further maths was more my pace. (I got an A* in that after an A in maths because it was more interesting.. idk).
Anyway I'm in Oxford now, doing physics (tfw I didn't prepare for the PAT), though I should have applied for physics and philosophy. I didn't do well this year; existential questions, drugs, and a shit relationship clouded my head. I find myself wanting to do things other than physics most of the time - first-year shit is tedious as fuck.
I think I have quite a rare way of thinking, but that's probably not raw intelligence, just low latent inhibition or asperger's or something.
Tell me Veeky Forums, what is my IQ? ;_;

I think that's true only to the extent that you need to know the jargon.

Being able to regurgitate a proof or solve a problem that you've already seen dozens of times before doesn't feel like intelligence to me. Sure I know about this and that, but that's because I've studied it. In my experience university is more a question of memory and training than intelligence.

It would be strange if someone who graduated university didn't know anything about the subject they studied, but just knowing that doesn't make them intelligent.

50

Well my point would be one can live on through other peoples memories. The information I disseminate is what defines me in terms of human connection. If I can disseminate info that resonates through many peoples' minds then I have created a significant change in reality. literally forming neural connections with electric pulses surging through these connections. Dunning and Kruger provided info for this thread and even stemmed this debate how many years after their postulate? In that light, Dunning and Kruger echo through the universe, ergo immortal makes sense. That is unless you want to fruitlessly argue about semantics instead of trying to grasp an enlightening concept. You clearly lack the wisdom to gain a new perspective at any chance you get. Furthermore, it seems as if you have fallen into a more primitive, argumentative form of debate. I wonder if you have any worthy perspectives to offer me although I highly doubt it. Which in turn gives way to the fact that you likely will die without much impact at all. Quite unattractively mortal if you ask me.

lel is this another oxfordbro on Veeky Forums? The gods must be smiling

also bruh how did your prelims go? As long as you got over 40% and passed you're fine, nobody gives a shit

I also questioned my life choices (doing biochem, also just finished first year) but I'm OK now, because even if I hate biochem (which I don't) I will still get an Oxford degree which is basically job security for the rest of my life. So don't sweat it ma man

Doesn't matter, all that matters is what you do with it.

Nah I failed mechanics & special relativity. 34℅ iirc. I got 75 on my first maths collection.. made me complacent.
I'm worried though because if I don't have a solid basis for next year it might take a shit on me and I need a 2:1 for the Mphys.. arghhhhhh why did I have to have an existential crisis? It's so fucking inconvenient.
Ok I'm winding myself up now... I'll chill

120... not bad but you'll have to sort some things out in the future. best of luck

I think I am just of average intelligence but the big problem is that I always try to take shortcuts.

Like say I will subconciously know that I really need to go to all lectures and do the problems until I can solve them fast yet I will skip them all and maybe do every problem just once and when I got it wrong think it's enough to read the solution for it just once instead of doing another problem to make sure I got it. I am also too lazy to take proper notes, review them and take the effort to learn and apply proper study techniques. When I study something I think I can get away with studying it superficially, like I will just glance over a diagram without making sure I truly understand it. Because of that I am an underachiever that reads pop-sci articles instead of doing actual science myself.

Just take it slow brother. You've still got a month until retakes, you'll be fine. What college you at?

Also, I was worried about that exact same thing, but then I realised that 2nd and 3rd years for all sciences is basically first year in *extensive detail.* So you will go over everything again, but this time in more depth.

Just focus on the retakes, the rest will come with the studies in your second year. And remember, your final degree doesn't include any results from first year. Good luck!

This is what I fear
>tfw I didn't go to any lectures
It just seemed pointless, I end up tuning out following my own ideas every 10 minutes, for 10 minute periods.. man and I didn't listen in tutes either, fml, what on earth did I actually learn?
Yeah I suppose.. I'm at Wadham. We had one shit tutor which didn't help at all..
We start quantum mechanics next year which is a lot more interesting than previous stuff. But we also start thermodynamics ._.
>focus on retakes
Focusing is precisely my problem but yeah. I have a month and the holiday hasn't been wasted so far. I guess I need to calm the fuck down.

You are probably smart but lazy, you just never got the message that being smart or talented doesn't help you one bit if you squander it all by being a lazy shit and not putting effort into anything. "Smart and lazy" is an excuse, if you don't perform, you're worthless. It doesn't matter how much potential you (think) you had.

How'd you fellas do in high school?

>thought I was smart but lazy since I went through school without studying
>never learned study discipline
>go to college
>understand nothing while everyone else seems to do as they are asking specific questions in the lecture
>go to the internet and see all the stuff people my age and younger make like reverse engineering some hardware or building robots

Turns out school was just very easy.

Physbro here
Nothing outstanding at GCSE (4 A*s, 5 As, 3 Bs ). At A-level I got A*A*ABB in physics, further maths, maths, computing, general studies.
Dunno id that helps you but.. yeah

Tell me about shit tutors, lol. We had elementary genetics with a specific tutor, and while I realise her research was in like, brain enzymes, she didn't know shit about genetics. Our tutorials would consist of us asking her questions and her responding "I'm not sure, I'll get back to you on that"

She was extremely smart and knowledgeable in her area (duh) but it was extremely irritating having her know pretty much nothing about what we were writing essays on.

Do you mean grades and stuff? I did the SATs because Oxford doesn't recognise my shit country's state exam (with good reason, I cannot articulate how absolutely fucking shit it is). Got 2200 on the SAT 1 and ~750s on three Subjects (Math 2, Biology, Physics) and an 800 on the Chemistry one. I was so elated when I got my results (which aren't that great by Oxford standards) and then listened to some of my international friends cry about how they got 2380/2400. Go figure.

cont.

continued

My high school was shit, which is sad because in the past, it apparently used to be one of the best in the country (talking to old graduates). Now it's just people buying teachers to give their children good grades. Anyways, I bought AP books to prepare for the SATs (old editions, so they would cost like $30 per book. I mean, the science is the same, how does a couple of extra diagrams in a new edition justify the 1000% increase in price?)

The weeks leading up to each of my SATs were really stressful, but the books I had (along with copious amounts of Khan Academy) pulled me through. I have never studied so hard in my life as when I was doing my SATs (and that includes my university prelims). To relate to the actual topic of this thread, I firmly believe intelligence (in the sense of something inborn) is severely overblown in modern society. I read a book called "Mindset" by Carol S. Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, which basically said if you approach shit in life with a mindset of "I can do this; I can learn this; I can become smarter" you *will* do it and you *will* succeed. (I also skimmed over her research papers to make sure she wasn't bullshitting me, and the science seems pretty solid, at least to a first year undergrad lol)

Did you think your interview went well?

At the time, absolutely not. I was scared shitless and too anxious after my interviews, all the way leading up to my acceptance letter. There's so many questions going through your head, you're always thinking of better ways to answer the interview questions posed to you, etc. But then when you get the letter, you're like, fuuuuuck. And it's easier.

But now looking back, I did in both my interviews what is absolutely crucial to getting you a place: thinking out loud. The interviews are there for the tutors to see how you think, what your train of thought looks like, and how you use information to form a logical argument. Even though I knew nothing about Sanger sequencing, my tutors shortly explained it to me and then we had a small discussion on what could go wrong, or why it's not that good of a method or something. Same with an HIV discussion we had. All I "knew" at the time was that HIV infects CD4+ T-cells (or something similar, I explained) and that's it. From there on out we had a talk about why HIV is hard to cure/treat, and me basically using everything I knew about viruses and the immune system to make up arguments for it. I don't even know if what I said is true, but they wanted logical arguments from the information I already had, and I gave that to them. I remember just repeating to myself "Think out loud, think out loud." They don't care if you make mistakes, they only care if you're silent.

I overheard someone in my college's JCR say that the interviews are there to see if you can handle the course. So if you show yourself as this person who can think logically, even in the absence of information (whether they give you something you haven't studied before, or you've forgotten something from high school) then you're golden.

Wow, this gives me a lot of hope, thanks a lot senpai.

IQ 128

I act like an idiot on the internet because it's fun.

No worries brother. Are you considering applying this year? This should be obvious, but literally focus on getting the best grades possible. Too many people think they need the perfect personal statement or that they should "appear unique" in their interviews. Bullshit. Just do the work and learn your shit. The grades are 99% of your admissions decision. Everything else matters too, of course, but not as much as the work itself. Best of luck!

I'd add that grades are subordinate to the combination of entrance exam & interview.
Personal statements are probably the least important aspect of admissions.

I know I have selective, fairly deep deficits, but overall think I'm capable of being pretty gosh darn clever. It's about capacity and the width of the spectrum of states (or actions) an individual could be spurred to access at a given time.

I've spent a lot of time working on the very low level aspects, and building and assessing and refining the underpinnings of all the higher systems I use on a daily basis. I know what can be done and have mental shortcuts to begin going there. In the absence of psychological inhibition, or transient physical problems, I can come to do more or less anything I want. I've done it before, and I'll do it again. It's a strange feeling knowing this, and having proof it isn't a cliche.

I've also never met someone that I saw as truly, inarguably, net superior to me. Superior in all meaningful ways. It hasn't happened. It likely won't happen. If it does, I'll just take what they have. Even if it's ultimately a strictly hardware advantage, it can be adapted.

Smart, but absentminded as fuck. Tend to miss the trees for the forest.