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Sure, but If you can improve your IQ by studying, that suggests that this number isn't some hyper-objective thing we should treat as immutable or that it's even a true reflection of the person's total cognitive abilities.

I'm not saying that IQ is useless or anything, just that we should take the results with an appropriately large grain of salt.

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You can improve your score by getting better at the tests and improving exam technique and maybe go from (picking numbers out of my arse) 115 to 120. You can't go from 90 to 120.

Depending on whether we're talking about studying-for-the-test or studying (education) generally:

> Studying and formal education can improve an IQ score by 1 to 5 points per additional year of schooling, while direct practice and familiarity with test formats can bump scores temporarily by 5 to 15 points.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6088505/

If you include education generally, this gives a swing of up to 80 points between someone who goes to school K-12 and then studies for the IQ test, vs. someone who doesn't do any of that.

Given that 80 points is many standard deviations on the IQ scale, it kind of seems like it's mostly measuring education/studying rather than something innate like "intelligence".

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