This isn't relevant to thread, but to the brief discussion about IQ that was occurring earlier:
I'd very much like to take another IQ test.
When I got "in trouble" when I was a young teenager, I was required to undergo an official psychological evaluation, administered by a government psychiatrist. I was given the latest version of the WISC (III or IV), and scored an extremely average IQ of 104. I would have been in the top one or two percentiles, if not for the fact that my verbal IQ was literally 46 points higher than my performance, or visual, IQ.
How does that work out? I realize that environmental factors can play a huge role when it comes to any sort of testing (and I certainly wasn't being tested under positive circumstances), but a 46-point disparity between subscores? That's ridiculous! True, I've never been the best at putting together puzzles or locking together Legos, but this baffles me. The last time I took a physics course, I outperformed all of my peers on tests (not so much with classroom grades, as I slacked something awful; another irony is that I was doing better on tests than one of my table-mates, who had scored 34 or 35 on the mathematics portion of the ACT. I had a 19 in that section, though 35's and 33's in Reading and English, respectively). Isn't performance IQ supposed to determine success in mathematical endeavors? That's essentially what the report that was given to my family says.
Maybe it's narcissism or arrogance in action, but I feel as if I'm not worth much for having an average IQ. There's such a strong correlation between IQ and success that it feels like I won't be able to get anywhere intellectually, regardless of how hard I try or what I do. Richard Feynman, genius that he was, is said to have had a relatively "low" IQ of 126.
Gah. This is more of a whine-rant than anything, but insight from people who are generally as unbiased as me would be helpful. For the sake of my insecure and puny ego, should I take another IQ test?
I could have graduated from high school at 12 or 13 years of age (assuming my parents had let me skip the two grades a teacher had wanted me to, and that I tested out of courses in high school, which plenty of motivated kids have done), the principal and counselor told me that I was the smartest kid in the school (the counselor said she wanted one of my papers before I graduated, so she could sell it if I ever got famous for something), and I consistently feel like a world-class dolt. My ACT composite was decent, but my GPA was so bad I'm having to go to community college to transfer to a state university with a 74% acceptance rate.
Are all of my acquaintances deluding themselves, or am I just a flat-out moron?
---> All things considered, I suppose my inability to accept "average-ness" is somewhat related to the topic of this thread, as the title is all we have.