Friday, March 7

Will the Mensa Candidate Please Stand Up



I've never considered myself genius material. I guess that stems from having a scholar as a sister. It was easy for me to slide by on a great personality and good looks. Ha ha. And besides, I always rationalized, who needs book smarts when you got street smarts like myself.
So, tonight I was minding my own business on facebook when I ran across an IQ test on a friends profile. I thought, "Hmmm, that could be fun. I'll try it out." I knew that if it ended up that I am "mentally challenged" then I could always just delete the application from my profile and go on my merry way deceiving people with my lack of intelligence. Because really, I don't think I'm too shabby at pulling off "smart".
The questions weren't too bad. Just your typical "which symbol doesn't belong" or "what comes next in this sequence". I flew through them pretty easily. And, what do you know, low and behold I ended up with a 134.
Now, I didn't really know what that meant. So, to the trusty google I go to answer all my questions. See, apparently smart people not only know the answers but where to find them as well. Come to find out, 134 is genius material. According to one resource 130 is the average IQ of all college professors and lies within the upper 3% of the general public.
Well, that got me really riled up so I decided to do a bit more testing. I mean how much faith can you really put into a silly facebook application?
To the Mensa site I headed. Now you can't really test for genius for free on the internet. It takes hours with certified instructors to fully determine your brain power. But you can take a Mensa Fun Test, which I did expediently.
And actually, true to name, it was kind of fun.
Again, I was shocked by my results. They were, and I quote, "20 out of 30. That is a very good score—you would have a good chance of passing the Mensa test." Hmmm...this was getting very interesting indeed.
Back to google I went in search of more tests. I opened up a few others and thought about working them, but quickly realized that the previous two tests and the 8 hours of teaching combined with 3 hours of grading I had put in this very day were taking their toll on what was now my OBVIOUS genius. And I decided the smart thing was to concede to my brains and call it a night.
I mean, why keep testing a good thing, right?
Don't worry, this uncommon aptitude thing shouldn't affect how I relate to the rest of the world. I'll just have to try to forget that I really am a brainiack .

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm too afraid to test my smarts. I think I'm afraid it will tell me I'm not smart. :)

Summer said...

I will try not to treat you differently now that it's confirmed you're gifted.
And, remember the little people when you're accepting your Nobel Peace Prize. Love ya!