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Comment by arohner | Hacker News Reader

I can say that I got bored during my SAT test. At the time, I was taking AP Calculus (which I also found easy), and the SAT was testing pre-calc. I sped through the answers just to get out of there. If I had actually cared, I'm pretty sure I could have scored 1600.

Edit: My point being, even if IQ and SAT are correlated, I suspect there are a large number of intelligent people for which test does not correlate. i.e. p < 1

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Perhaps, but your experience does not indicate that the SAT test is not useful for college admissions. Chances are, colleges will want to admit the person who was motivated enough to complete the whole test instead of the person who was intelligent, but lazy. Intelligence without motivation is not of much use.

and further, those with high SAT scores and low grades seem to be showing that they aren't using their supposedly high IQ towards academic achievement, and perhaps should be questioned more than those with the reverse split.

My point was that the correlation between SAT and IQ is not perfect; I said nothing about its usefulness for college admissions.

You also imply that there is a single 'motivation' scale. There isn't. I am highly motivated at my startup and many other things. I'm highly unmotivated at answering the same math problem for the third time with different numbers.

The psychologists seem quite certain of their "g" factor, so I assume it exists, but I doubt anyone has ever argued that an intelligence test didn't have statistical errors.

Just consider how differently teenagers mature and how that might affect their learning. Lots of them do sports instead of reading. A friend of mine never studied in school because she had an unknown eye problem; new glasses at 30 and she could read effortlessly. Some are depressed or suffer unknowingly from a disease. Etc.

Edit: As noted, I should have written "any researcher in the subject" instead of "anyone" in the first sentence. :-)

I doubt anyone has ever argued that an intelligence test didn't have statistical errors.

Certainly no professional psychologist would claim that IQ tests have no error of estimation.

http://learninfreedom.org/iqbooks.html

If you are truthful, I do not think you appreciate the rarity of your skill.

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