My daughter had two IQ tests in her life-- one in first grade (IQ came back 114) and one in 4th grade (IQ came back 122). On the basis of those IQ tests I had to do some serious pushing to get her into the gifted program even provisionally.
Now fast forward five years. She's never had a grade lower than an A. Her MAP scores are in the 95th percentile in everything, and her math scores regularly put her so far beyond the 99th percentile that her RANGE is 99th-99th percentile. Her ACT scores in 7th grade put her above the 50th percentile for high school seniors in every single subject-- and she just missed the 90th percentile in a couple. She's won the regional science fair, the middle school geography AND spelling bee (went to state with the spelling), a national foreign language contest, and of course every math competition she's ever entered. Now as a freshman she's taking all the most advanced courses her high school offers (including Honors Algebra II, Honors Biology,
Honors English, and Honors World Geography) and she's ranked #1 in a class of 550. And while she DOES study, it's not liek she burns candles at both ends or anything. It's usually one or two hours a night--if that.
According to the IQ tests, she doesn't have the capacity to do any of this. (I guess she must be grabbing her intelligence out of the sky somewhere.) Are the IQ tests just flat-out wrong-- and if so, what good are they anyway? Why not rely on out-of-level achievement tests instead?
