Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research SAT-IQ Correlations

That is an interesting point and brings to mind the achievement/ability correlation question. Do we accept high achievement as proof of high IQ/intelligence in all instances? I'd argue not. I know plenty of kids/teens/probably even adults who achieve at a level that is higher than their IQ. I do think that hard work, motivation, exposure, and probably a number of other things play as heavily into achievement as does intelligence. I'm curious as to others' thoughts, though.

For standardized tests, I've found that if I do enough practice tests, I can generally get a nearly perfect score, generally completing them in under the time limit.

The only exception for me was when I was practicing on the LSAT. I was only ever able to get a practice score of about 176 (out of 180) because I simply wasn't fast enough. And if I did it faster, my accuracy suffered.

I only have that problem with verbal standardized tests, not with science or math tests.

The only IQ test that I have laying around my house says that my IQ is 139 (when I was seven years old?).

Now, if you take my SAT score of 1440 (740/700), it says that I'm supposed to be at the 99.8th percentile using that comparison thingy. I wasn't really practicing for that one.

My GMAT score (770) puts me above 99.9th. I did enough practice tests to get an 800.

So, in my case, my standardized test scores were ending up above my tested IQ score.

I'm one data point, so you can take it for what's it's worth.

My one data point is that my husband scored 790/790/790 on his GREs. He is very smart, don't get me wrong, but we both feel that's likely an overestimation. Key fact: he used to teach SAT prep classes.

I didn't know they'd eliminated the analogies. I guess I could see the argument that those are more of a pure intelligence test. Bummer for my DD, though--that was her highest score on her IQ test. She LOVES analogies.

Also, one of my best friends in high school got mediocre scores on the SATs and has always done poorly on standardized tests. Based her truly abysmal spelling, I assume she is dyslexic or has another LD. She is now extremely successful both as a programmer and in her side career as a book critic. I really think she's smarter than me, but I outscored her by a lot on the SAT.

My daughter's reading score on the ACT was poor. She has a tough time not being thorough. We are working on skimming - a needed skill for this part of the ACT.

I don't know that "skimming" is necessarily a skill needed to excel on the ACT reading - but fluency and speed are certainly helpful, as is rapidly retrieving details from the passage and drawing inferences from them. Have you done a diagnostic practice test to see which particular kinds of questions she is missing? Targeted practice on those types of questions (and lots and lots of practice tests, with an emphasis on her weak sections) can often help make the most of test prep time.

My son has more trouble with the "social inference" kind of reading questions than with anything else - not surprisingly. His strategy on tests like these is to go through and answer everything he can answer within 10 seconds of reading the question (marking down the number and giving his best quick guess on the others just to have a "place-holder" answer so he doesn't have to remember to fill in the next answer leaving a skipped space), and then going back to "actually" answer those he has to really think about if he has time at the end. This can often be helpful if time considerations are an issue - no point in running out of time and missing easy questions at the end because you felt compelled to answer all of the questions in order.

I don't see the current SAT and ACT as necessarily correlating at extraordinary levels with IQ. For the most part, they test skills that can be explicitly taught more than pure reasoning ability, and, due to the time constraints, reward good working memory and processing speed as much as they do straight reasoning power.

My take is that if you take the SAT (or PSAT, even) without prep, you can get a ballpark estimate of your IQ. Furthermore, the ACT still correlates with IQ, so if you took the SAT, just convert it to an ACT score to get your estimated IQ.

Depends on what you mean by correlated. There is certainly a positive R-squared, but it’s not that high. Current ACT and SAT are much more based on learned knowledge than inherent “intelligence”. The scores are also correlated with parent education level, income, and other factors.

IQ scores are also correlated with parent education level, income, and other factors.