Very few Americans will make it through their lives in the 21st century without facing some form of standardized test, whether it be an IQ test, one of the many psychological profiling tests, or one of the aptitude tests that nearly every student has taken to get into a university to begin with. Most of us accept these tests as a stressful but necessary part of everyday life in our age. We like the idea that our surgeons have done well on the MCAT. We want to think that our president has a higher IQ than other world leaders. (At least some of us do.) Because standardized tests of various sorts are so common in our lives, we do not often take the time to examine them critically.
This paper takes a small step in that direction by examining the components of two of the most common form of intelligence test, the current versions of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test and the Wechsler test.
It should be noted that these tests have a number of similarities. Both are general intelligence tests, which is to say that in contrast to tests of specific proficiencies or aptitudes, intelligence tests are designed to measure the global capacity of an individual to cope with the environment (Cohen & Swerdick, 1998, p. 21).
Test scores for such tests are generally known as intelligence quotients, or IQs, although the various tests are constructed quite differently. The Stanford-Binet is heavily weighted with items involving verbal abilities; the Wechsler scales consist of separate verbal and performance subscales, each with its own IQ. There are also specialized infant intelligence tests, tests that do not require the use of language, and tests that are designed for group administration (Evans and Waites, 1982, p. 27).
The early intelligence scales yielded a mental-age score, expressing the child's ability to do as well as average children who were older, younger, or equivalent in chronological age. The deviation IQ used today expresses th...