Grades can’t determine intelligence
Haroon Rashid
Academic exams that are conducted only test the learning ability of a student, not his or her intelligence. Answer sheets don’t prove the intelligence of a student. Many students make spelling mistakes or careless mistakes due to nervousness or hurry. Students have trouble memorizing long, complicated definitions.
Writing a perfect description within the word limit and time is also a difficult task. Often, students know the correct answers but fail to write them according to the instructions given in the paper. This is not a standard measure to judge students on a single answer sheet. True intelligence can only be measured with the amount of knowledge, not the marks of an academic test. A student who works hard can actually get fewer marks than a student who studies selectively if he or she gets common questions in the paper. In fact, marks can be earned easily by doing some last-minute study but intelligence is something special.
Exams require perseverance, hard work and ability to strategize. Correct strategy formulation doesn’t emerge out of sheer good luck but a sharp brain. The idea that academic tests only check one’s ability to memorize and vomit it out on the paper also doesn’t hold true today when questions are out of the box, requiring students to improvise and formulate answers.
Remember also if a student rote memorizes material for exam, It doesn’t mean he/she has learned the material well though. As humans, we’re a lot more than just numbers on a page. Each of us has an incredible variety of different strengths and talents. The abilities typically measured by grades only cover a set range of them. Intelligence is just one of the countless variables that will impact your grades.
Reasons grades don’t define intelligence
There’s a popular quote. It’s often attributed to the famed school dropout physicist Albert Einstein:
“If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
We might know the lessons covered in class, but still be unable to translate that into performance once it’s up for a grade. Our mental and emotional state are powerful factors. For example lots of people suffer from test anxiety. That can make it difficult to succeed – no matter how well you understand the material.
If we’re stressed or anxious, our brain will want to do a thousand things other than complete a complex assignment. So we must not get surprised if a person underperforms on a task; maybe it’s because they’re too stressed to focus. No single scale could give you a good look at a person’s unique mix of abilities, talents, work ethic, creativity, leadership skills, and how those traits influence one another.
Intelligence has been a controversial topic throughout psychology’s history. Despite the substantial interest in the subject, there is still considerable disagreement about what components makeup intelligence. In addition to questions of exactly how to define intelligence, the debate continues today about whether accurate measurements are even possible.
How to define Intelligence
Throughout recent history, researchers have proposed some different definitions of intelligence. While these definitions can vary considerably from one theorist to the next, current formulations tend to suggest that intelligence is the ability to:
- Learn from experience: The acquisition, retention, and use of knowledge is an important component of intelligence.
- Recognize problems: To put knowledge to use, people must be able to identify possible problems in the environment that need to be addressed.
- Solve problems: People must then be able to take what they have learned to come up with a useful solution to a problem they have noticed in the world around them.
Thus Intelligence involves some different mental abilities including logic, reasoning, problem-solving, and planning. While the subject of intelligence is one of the largest and most heavily researched, it is also one of the topics that generate the greatest controversy.
Brief history of intelligence
The term “intelligence quotient,” or IQ, was first coined in the early 20th century by a German psychologist named William Stern. Psychologist Alfred Binet developed the very first intelligence tests to help the French government identify schoolchildren who needed extra academic assistance.
Binet was the first to introduce the concept of mental age or a set of abilities that children of a certain age possess. Since that time, intelligence testing has emerged as a widely used tool that has led to developing many other tests of skill and aptitude. However, it continues to spur debate and controversy over the use of such testing, cultural biases that may be involved, influences on intelligence, and even the very way we define intelligence.
Major theories of iIntelligence
Different researchers have proposed a variety of theories to explain the nature of intelligence. Here are some of the major theories of intelligence that have emerged during the last 100 years.
General Intelligence
British psychologist Charles Spearman (1863–1945) described a concept he referred to as general intelligence or the g factor. After using a technique known as factor analysis to examine some mental aptitude tests, Spearman concluded that scores on these tests were remarkably similar. People who performed well on one cognitive test tended to perform well on other tests, while those who scored badly on one test tended to score badly on others. He concluded that intelligence is a general cognitive ability that can be measured and numerically expressed.
Primary Mental Abilities
Psychologist Louis L.Thurstone (1887–1955) offered a differing theory of intelligence. Instead of viewing intelligence as a single, general ability, Thurstone’s theory focused on seven different primary mental abilities:
Associative memory: The ability to memorize and recall.
Numerical ability: The ability to solve arithmetic problems.
Perceptual speed: The ability to see differences and similarities among objects.
Reasoning: The ability to find rules.
Spatial visualization: The ability to visualize relationships.
Verbal comprehension: The ability to define and understand words.
Word fluency: The ability to produce words rapidly.
Theory of Multiple Intelligences
One of the more recent ideas to emerge is Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner proposed that the traditional idea of intelligence, based on IQ testing, did not fully and accurately depict a person’s abilities. His theory proposed eight different intelligences based on skills and abilities that are valued in different cultures:
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: The ability to control your body movements and to handle objects skillfully.
Interpersonal intelligence: The capacity to detect and respond appropriately to the moods, motivations, and desires of others.
Intrapersonal intelligence: The capacity to be self-aware and in tune with inner feelings, values, beliefs, and thinking processes.
Logical-mathematical intelligence: The ability to think conceptually and abstractly, and the capacity to discern logically or numerical patterns.
Musical intelligence: The ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, and timbre.
Naturalistic intelligence: The ability to recognize and categorize animals, plants, and other objects in nature.
Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to the sounds, meanings, and rhythms of words.
Visual-spatial intelligence: The capacity to think in images and pictures, to visualize accurately and abstractly.
Robert Sternberg a Psychologist while agreeing with another American developmental Psychologist Howard Gardner argued that intelligence is much broader than a single, general ability, he suggested that some of Gardner’s types of intelligence are better viewed as individual talents. Sternberg proposed what he referred to as “successful intelligence,” which involves three different factors:
Analytical intelligence: Your ability to evaluate information and solve problems.
Creative intelligence: Your ability to come up with new ideas.
Practical intelligence: Your ability to adapt to a changing environment.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of intelligence and the tests developed to measure this concept, it’s important to understand the history of intelligence testing, the research that has been conducted, and the findings that have emerged.
There arise some major questions about intelligence and IQ testing such as;
- Are intelligence tests biased?
- Is intelligence a single ability, or does it involve an assortment of multiple skills and abilities?
- Is intelligence inherited, or does the environment play a larger role?
- What do intelligence scores predict, if anything?
To explore these questions, psychologists have conducted a considerable amount of research on the nature, influences, and effects of intelligence.
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