It's A Crummy Commercial!

Okay, I'm idly playing a little Solitaire Scrabulous. Why Solitaire? Because I'm a scaredy-cat and do not wish my vocabulary skills against other people.

I think I'm getting better, though. When I first starting playing, I was lucky to put down words of more than three letters; now I have actually used all seven letters at a time.

Once, anyway.

But that's not what this is about. I finished up a game -- scored 502, by the way, not quite my highest but definitely up there -- and saw the clever ad at the bottom of the page:

Free IQ Test!

What the hell, I think. I'd kind of like to know my IQ.

So I click through and take the test. It's the usual mixture of Miller Analogies and Complete the Sequence and Math Stuff and Word Scrambles. Then I click the Get Results button.

Oh holy dear sweet Jesus! I don't get the results; I get page after page after page of "offers" disguised as a "survey." Most of these offers require you to divulge your email address to get crap or to immediately sign up for some kind of service (Only $9.99 month! Starting now!).

I click "No! HELL no!" on all of them, but it seems I have to at least look at one per screen. So I do, and I click "What part of 'NO' don't you understand?" on each of them. Finally the damn IQ Thing gets tired of me and gives up.

I swear, I would have quit after the first stupid offer but I really wanted to know my IQ. As I kept clicking "NO, DAMMIT!!" I began to wonder if there was any correlation between the IQ result and the number of online "offers" that a person accepted. For example, was the IQ result automatically lowered by 5 points for each offer a person fell for? What I lowering or raising my IQ by being so obstinate? Did people with lower IQs get suckered into accepting lots of these offers, or did people with higher IQs tend to do it?

There's a master's thesis in there somewhere. Possibly a doctoral dissertation.

Also, once the IQ Thing finally gave me the results, it invited me to copy a code snippet to put on my site so everyone could take the test -- or fall for one of the many offers.

So, no snippet. No link. I live to serve.

My IQ is 152. Is that good?

Comments

[Cosmic]

One could say that yes, 152 puts you in the superior/genius range (it does) or one could say, they got you to first of all, buy into an internet IQ test and then click on a hundred million pages to find out the number and you think you can believe it? I don't know but if indeed the 152 is correct, I am fucin impressed!! I tested out in the Army at 135, and was pretty damn proud of myself. Then again, can I believe the US government? Hehe.

[Stephanie]

152? That makes you a genius!

[l'empress]

I shy away from most IQ tests because I know I can score high; I also know that high IQ is no guarantee that the subject can do anything well except pass tests.

In Psych 101 -- age 21 -- I scored 132, way above the rest of the class. For the spatial relationships -- now included in IQ tests, I had 11 out of 12 correct. Girls weren't supposed to be able to do that. (Helpful in organic chemistry.)

Online a few years ago, I hit 175. I'm not smarter, but over the years, I've learned how to take the tests.

Test or no test, I think you're pretty smart. I read your book, y'know.

[Bev]

You've hit on the reason why I rarely go to Facebook any more. When I first joined it wasn't like that, but it VERY QUICKLY became just terrible. I don't even play Scrabulous any more. Too bad when good things get ruined.

[LA]

That is an excellent score! I test well too but have no clue whether or how it translates into real world smarts. But it's fun to have a high number anyhow. Well done, Ms Smartypants! ~LA