Getting into Mensa

August 21, 2005 4:06 PM

Getting into Mensa

Id like to see if i can get into Mensa for one, because i think i just barely qualify; second, because it may come in handy sometime; and third and most importantly, because training for the IQ test may improve my mental abilities.
So the first question is what besides practicing taking IQ tests can improve the cognitive faculties involved in doing well on a test of this kind. Although there are a lot of areas which they supposedly cover, it seems mostly math oriented which is my worst subject. Which leads to the second question:
Which of the tests that qualifies you for mensa is lightest on math / the easiest? According to Mensa UK i need:
Cattell B - 148
Culture Fair - 132
Ravens Advanced Matrices - 135
Ravens Standard Matrices - 131
Wechsler Scales - 132

And since i cant find any of these tests online to take, how do they compare to your typical 'top of google search for IQ test' tests?

posted by who else to education (16 comments total)

For what it's worth, I took the Wechsler test in high school, and don't remember there being ANY math on it...of course, I'm terrible at math, and it's possible that I've just blocked it out.

Anyway, I ended up scoring well and joined Mensa soon thereafter. I found the experience to be somewhat disappointing, however. I got kind of tired of reading all the "articles" in the quarterly "newsletter" that talked about how much smarter Mensa people are versus non-Mensa people. As far as I could tell there's not really much else to the whole thing....
posted by richmondparker at 4:18 PM on August 21, 2005

Just out of curiosity, how could Mensa membership be helpful?

That said, I usually rock on IQ tests. Not because I'm significantly smarter than average (I'd put myself between 120 and 130, average for the folk I work with), but because I have the following advantages:

I've taken several courses on logic, from both math and philosophy departments. Any logic question becomes dead easy once you've done a few. IQ tests usually have a bunch. Learn some boolean math!

I'm good at visualizing three-dimensional objects and manipulating them mentally. I'm not sure why so many IQ tests associate this ability with 'smartness', but someone somewhere decided these were correlated. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get better at that sort of thing with practice: I blame a childhood obsession with Legos for my skills.
posted by Eamon at 4:24 PM on August 21, 2005

I don't know if it would apply to the UK, but if you took the SAT prior to 1994 Mensa will accept those scores. They may have even worked out a conversion for tests taken since then. The SAT is obviously not too light on math, however.
posted by LionIndex at 4:37 PM on August 21, 2005

From Mensa's website:

Annual subscription costs: $52.00 (for US membership)

Cost for Test Evaluation: $30.00
Cost for Supervised Test: $30.00
Cost for Home Test: $18.00

Mensa is kinda like Who's Who Among America's High School Students... basically a scam to get money from those pathetic, introverted individuals who need to convince others that they're really special, because they can't do it through the greatness of their actions or accomplishments.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:45 PM on August 21, 2005

See also.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:47 PM on August 21, 2005

The Raven Progressive Matrices are excellent tests to assess general intelligence without relying on prior schooling, and thus the least subject to training effects. They're also non-verbal in nature, which removes a lot of potential crosscultural or economic bias. For the purpose of your goal, they're probably the least useful, because I doubt you'd be able to push your score up much with more than a basic familiarity bonus.

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults is a more familiar type of IQ test and uses a variety of verbal and "performance" measures. You could potentially "study" for it, but taking it repeatedly renders the results invalid.

Neither test includes much "math", per se, but the Raven measures visuospatial performance, which is linked to mathematical ability, and the WAIS includes a lot of numerical reasoning. If you're naturally weak in math, you may be naturally weak in those skills as well.

I'm not familiar with the other two tests.
posted by nev at 4:50 PM on August 21, 2005

I'm good at visualizing three-dimensional objects and manipulating them mentally. I'm not sure why so many IQ tests associate this ability with 'smartness', but someone somewhere decided these were correlated.

Most 'geniuses' are cited as having highly visual memory and thought processes.
posted by wackybrit at 4:51 PM on August 21, 2005

I didnt realise there are membership dues for Mensa. Thats no fun. In that case i guess im only interested in the self-improvement part...
posted by who else at 5:10 PM on August 21, 2005

My personal experience with Mensa was that the ratio of seriously weird folk to people I could relate to was awfully high, certainly in the single digits. There were also a lot of the people who wanted to play the "I'm smarter than thou" game all of the time.

On the surface, it seemed like a good idea, but as my one and only year in the organization went on, I realized it was not my cup of tea. YMMV, this post void in Arkansas, stated results may not match your own, etc.
posted by pjern at 5:53 PM on August 21, 2005

Of course, just wanting to be in such a club automatically deducts about 20 points from those scores, though, doesn't it?
posted by luriete at 6:45 PM on August 21, 2005 [1 favorite]

You can try this more exclusive group, their dues are only $10/year. Though you will probably miss out on the Mensa socials. This is a 3-sigma society, 3 standard deviations from average intelligence, (vs. the mensa 2-sigma). There exist 4/5-sigma societies too with entrance criteria that are increasingly esoteric. I agree with solopsist that these things don't necessarily attract people who you would want to be your friends. Direct and indirect conceit can run high. But as in most things it is a mixed bag and there are great people as well.
posted by blueyellow at 6:46 PM on August 21, 2005

_Don't_ bother. Trust me.
posted by LairBob at 7:09 PM on August 21, 2005

Well, I qualified for Mensa, but I ultimately did not join. (One side effect of asking my high school counselor for an IQ test was that I was guided into college a year early, even though the school system ultimately screwed me out of a diploma and I had to go to summer school just to qualify to take the state GED.)

I think the main reason for joining should not be the "prestige" of having a high IQ, especially in this day and age when we understand all the social and cultural aspects that the standard IQ tests measure versus some generic, humanistic value of "intelligence". (For my money, in my 40s, I wish I'd known more about the "EQ" that became a buzzword later on.) You should only join for social reasons -- you want to meet others who enjoy the same goofy, nerdy shit that you do, or you want access to their programs, or you want to network for professional reasons. Of course, now that we have the internet, finding goofy, nerdy people is really quite easy even in the most remote cowtown, so that's a much less valuable thing. The prestige question, I think, comes down to whether you really, truly think people who are not in Mensa will be impressed with your getting in. For almost all values of "impressed", the answer is no, they won't be. They might even think more negatively of you.

I don't think it's a scam although it certainly is a company rather than a non-profit organization.

If you want to improve your cognitive abilities, though, subscribe to Games.
posted by dhartung at 9:00 PM on August 21, 2005

Read a few issues of the Mensa magazine before you try to get in, and decide for yourself if that's who you want to associate yourself with. I looked over an issue, and found the supercilious, we-have-all-the-answers, they-should-really-be-listening-to-us tone to be annoying in the extreme.
posted by Vidiot at 9:08 PM on August 21, 2005

While I tend to share Civil_Disobedient's snarky assesment of the type who join Mensa, I should point out that in the days before the Intraweb shifted time and compressed distance, it could be pretty hard to find other people who both had brains and were willing to use them if you didn't live near a university or a larger city.

Some people joined mensa because it was one of the few chances they had to escape the narrow minded anti-intellectualism of their hometowns. Finding few kindered spirits made the existance of the inevitable wankers at the meetings tolerable. Not much different than a lot of online communities, actually.
posted by Good Brain at 9:43 PM on August 21, 2005

I dunno. When we first got the net at school (1994 or '95), the newsgroups were the only interesting thing. I remember Mensa's newsgroup traffic being 99% sex-related bragging. So you're probably looking at some folks with insecurities.
posted by yerfatma at 4:19 AM on August 22, 2005