Free IQ Tests

Donald Saunders asked:


Though it has been known for some time that children who have sleep apnea often produce low scores on IQ tests (typically scoring about 85 against a score of 101 for children without sleep apnea) what we have not known until recently is that this results from chemical changes taking place in the brain. This means that a normally ’smart’ kid might well turn in a run of the mill performance as a result of nothing more than a sleep disorder which can be quite easily treated in the majority of instances.

In a study which was conducted at the Hopkin’s Children’s Centre in Baltimore 31 children between the ages of 6 and 16 (19 of whom suffered from severe sleep apnea) were examined with a form or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and it was found that the children suffering from sleep apnea displayed considerable alterations in both the right frontal cortex and hippocampus – two sections of the human brain which are associated with learning and higher mental function. This same study also discovered that these children had altered levels of three chemicals in the brain that is indicative of brain damage.

This change in the chemistry of the brain brought about by sleep apnea could or could not be permanent and additional studies will be required to see whether or not this affect can be reversed. But, even if this problem can be reversed and the cognitive function and brain chemistry can be normalized, children with sleep apnea are going to continue to have a loss in learning as long as they are suffering from sleep apnea which is left untreated and they will certainly not be able to wind back the clock and recover this learning period.

Naturally parents should already be looking for signs of sleep apnea in their children however this latest study shows that an early diagnosis and treatment of this sleep disorder could have a very large affect on a child’s life.

The indicators of sleep apnea may include frequent pauses in breathing while sleeping which often produce an arousal from sleep and tossing and turning. Children might also show loud or labored breathing, snoring, coughing, gasping and, sometimes, bedwetting at an age when this phase should normally have passed. Parents could additionally notice a child sleeping in an unusual position, possibly with their bottom sticking up in the air and their head slanted backwards in an unwitting attempt to force their airway open.

In nearly all instances childhood sleep apnea can be treated by the surgical removal of the tonsils and adenoids or of excess tissue from the back of the throat or nose. In addition, a CPAP (continuous positive airways pressure) machine may also be recommended to provide a child with a flow of air which is delivered through a mask worn while sleeping to maintain an open airway.

Sleep apnea is in itself debilitating for any child and the affects of a lengthy period of restless sleep will take its toll on your child. However, when you combine this with a reduction in a child’s IQ, it is crucial that you act at the earliest possible opportunity to see that this problem is diagnosed and then treated.



John

Elena Laramie asked:


This time of the year, everybody is thinking about their finances. Money is on our minds. So while you’re rummaging through your receipts and reviewing those W2 forms, add a credit report to your list.

Why get your credit report right now? Making sure your credit report is accurate can get you lower interest rates, save you money and help protect you from identity theft.

Wow! A credit report can do all that? Well, yes. It’s quite a powerful financial record. The more you know about your report, the better off you’ll be when getting a mortgage…buying a car…renting an apartment…even getting a job.

Put on your thinking cap. Let’s test your credit IQ.

True or false: You have 3 separate credit reports, and each one can contain different information. True. Each of the big three credit bureausTransUnion, Equifax and Experiankeeps its own record on you and gathers information independently. That means each report is unique, and that can mean three different credit scores as well. In order to get your complete credit history, you should consider all three credit repots and scores. This combines all your information in one easy-to-read report.

True or false: You only need to check your credit report once a year. False. If you truly want to manage and maintain healthy credit, you should check your report every month or so. This allows you to ensure everything is accurate and help keep your name safe and secure. And ordering your credit reports online makes monitoring your information a breeze.

True or false: Requesting your own credit report lowers your credit score. False. A lot of people get this one wrong. There is a difference between checking your own credit and having a creditor check your credit. When you check your own report, it does not harm your credit score

Whenever you apply for new credit, the creditor will request a copy of your credit report, causing an inquiry to appear. An inquiry from a credit application can impact your score, so it’s important that you apply for new credit in moderation.

True or false: Most negative records stay on your credit report for 7-10 years. True. Bankruptcies, collection accounts and even late payments will stay on your report for seven years or more. Positive records can stay on your credit report longer. And don’t be tricked into thinking that a credit repair agency can remove accurate (or inaccurate) information from your report.

True or false: Routine check-ups can help your credit score. True. Making sure your credit report is accurate, along with doing things like paying your bills on time and keeping your credit card balances below 35% of their limits, will help you maintain a healthy credit profile.

So how did you do? Even if you’re not a credit whiz yet, you’ll look like a genius when you get lower rates on your loans. It pays to be smart about your credit.



Brent

Evgheny Stivenson asked:


It is possible to enhance your intelligence quotient in a matter of 10 minutes. Some techniques to do so are discussed below.

Don’t you want to enhance your IQ? Of course, you can use the brain power exercises and techniques. But these are long term and you would need to regularly practice them. What if you want to boost your IQ now, when you don’t have more than 10 minutes. You would need all your IQ for any important meeting, or a test or any other major event in your life. If you really need some concrete results and not argue about intelligence, try the following techniques.

Breath To Increase Intelligence Quotient

Breath deeply through your nose. This will relax you immensely and help you remain calm and composed. Deep breathing infuses oxygen into your blood and therefore into your brain and enhances its functioning. A relaxed brain will be far more efficient. Also nose breathing uses the diaphragm more, so lungs draw more air. This is the simplest and shortest way to enhance your intelligence quotient immediately.

Another level of relaxation through breathing is meditation. Sit in whatever posture you are comfortable and concentrate on your breathing. With eyes closed, breath through your nose initially and this will truly calm and relax you. you will have thoughts interfering but just ignore them and keep your focus on your breathing. Do this for a few minutes.

Posture and exercise can improve your IQ

The posture you take while at any problem will surely affect the intelligence at your disposal. Just observe the difference when you solve a math problem slouching and sleeping while you do the same sitting upright. The latter posture will definitely be better since you can think a lot better like that.

You need to exercise, but not a very hectic regime as such. Exercise just enough to pump blood into your brain. Walking works for many but a better alternative to boost your IQ is aerobics.

Sleep also is very crucial for proper brain functioning. But the quality of sleep is also important apart from the duration of sleep.

Diet to Boost IQ

One tree whose leaves do certainly increase blood flow into brain is ginkgo biloba tree. You can use its leaves either in tea or in form of capsules. It also helps improve your memory power and concentration. The effect is immediate and it lasts long if regularly used.

Caffeine is certainly a IQ booster. It has been proved that any test taken after consuming caffeine in some form or the other does increase your scores. But do remember, that the effect is only temporary and caffeine if used longer can have adverse side effects too.

Give up sugar. Any carbohydrate if taken beyond a limit, can blur your thinking. Insulin gets injected into your blood stream after you have sugar and thus diminishes your ability to think. Avoid all carbohydrates like white flour, sugar, potatoes if you want to think clearly.

Results matter in the end

Experts will endlessly debate if the above techniques can really boost one’s IQ. But there are times when it is very crucial for you to score high in a test. The above techniques if are found to be IQ booster, why not use them rather than wasting time in thinking if IQ really gets boosted or not. What matters is the score you get in the IQ test. So if you sleep well, have coffee and think sitting straight and if all this boosts IQ, there is no harm in doing the above techniques. These will prepare you better to face any task. Hence, be wise and don’t debate any more on IQ and its definitions.

I am sure you all know Henry Ford. What was his IQ, any idea? Why bother? He was the most creative thinker of the last century and he was so because he was always in the company of intelligent people. That alone is a direct 20 point in IQ. I hope you get the point I state here.

You are concerned about results. Hence if you want to be creative resort to such techniques of finding a solution. There are techniques available to try out anything. Try your hands at speed reading and you will have double the grasp on the subject you read. What the world will see are the results or achievements you garner in your lifetime. The Monalisa, the Empire State building, etc, are what the world will remember and not your score in IQ tests.



Allen

Wacek Kijewski asked:


“Can human intelligence be measured?”

“Yes, I think so… Different tests could be used to investigate several kinds of abilities (excluding skills) and the subject’s

overall ability, call it intelligence, could be determined”.

“If I want to express it in the SI unit, which metric unit could be used to measure these abilities?”

“Actually, you may call intelligence a unitless and autonomous quantity which is not part of any measuring system as it is expressed by Intelligence Quotient or IQ. A test, consisting of a series of questions, is administered to large samples of different age groups (usually teenagers). Then, the average score at each level is determined, the result being the so-called Binet (a French psychologist) scale. The score of an individual is compared with the group average score giving a quotient called IQ.”

“Aha, I think… I think…I understand. Please, can you explain then, what is the meaning of IQ=200 or IQ=10?”

” Hmmm…hmmm… let me think how to answer best…”

“Now, I have an idea for a unit of intelligence!”

Oh, really?”

“An experiment was conducted with a predatory fish, a pike, in a pond. The pond was divided into two parts with a glass barrier between them. On one side of the barrier there was the pike and on the other, a group of fish, roach. The pike tried to attack the roach, hitting the glass each time. It gave up after, on average, twenty attempts. What about introducing the SI unit “the pike” which will represent twenty tries? If somebody learns in a lower number of repetitions, he/she should be regarded as more intelligent”

“Well, well, that’s interesting idea! However, wouldn’t “the pike” be better utilised as a unit of stupidity? In order to understand something, an individual requires a certain number of repetitions of an activity and, consequently, an individual requiring a higher number of repetitions is less intelligent than one requiring a lower number of repetitions. The problem is to allocate a certain percentage which will indicate lower intelligence associated with each repetition.”

“Perhaps we should leave this problem to the intelligent members of MENSA!”



Dmitry Aranov

Andrew Stratton asked:


A soil test allows a land owner to balance the potential impact of harm from soil contamination against the cost of undertaking a cleanup operation with the advice of a soil testing lab.

Soil testing is used as part of contaminated land rehabilitation projects to determine the presence and levels of harmful substances. A site is deemed to be contaminated when areas or the entire site has toxic chemicals in the ground that are harmful to humans or the environment at levels higher than those normally found in the region.

Soil testing companies are able to test for the presence of heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury, and zinc, other toxic metals such as cobalt, beryllium, nickel, and chromium, carcinogenic solvents like toluene and benzene, oils, fuel additives, radioactives, cyanide, pesticides, poisons, and fertilizers.

These substances can make their way into the ground from sites of heavy industry like smelters and factories, manufacturing plants, transit infrastructure like airports, docks, the roads, rail yards, and other vehicle depots, from leaking storage tanks and pipelines, runoff from agriculture, waste disposal sites and dumps, and even from commercial and residential sources.

As well as direct exposure, contaminants can make their way into environments that have never directly housed toxic substances, by blowing onto the site from neighboring properties through the wind, or leeching into the local soil and groundwater through the underground aquifers.

Once a soil test determines that toxic substances are present on a site, you need to consider how likely it is to affect those who come into contact with it. This depends very much on which substances are present and their quantities, where the site is, and what it shall be used for.

Some contaminants can cause harm to humans simply by inhaling dust from the air, or by contact with the skin and mucus membranes such as the eyes and mouth. In other cases, drinking tainted water can cause health problems. Towns which have high levels of heavy metals in the environment show increased rates of birth defects, retardation of newborns, lower IQs, and increased rates of many types of cancer.

In agricultural areas, plants and livestock can also be affected by these contaminants in the same way, and after being tainted, can pass on toxic substances to anything that eats them through several stages of the food chain.

In residential areas where children are likely to be present, contaminated soil testing is crucial, as lower concentrations of toxins are considered acceptable when compared with zones near heavy industry like ports and rail yards.

Moreover, children typically come into closer contact than adults with the dirtier parts of the environment by their nature, whether that means getting dirty while playing or ingesting dirt directly.

Government guidelines for contaminated soil testing and management vary across different regions, however, they tend towards an approach of risk management: It is necessary that some areas become polluted for the wheels of industry to keep turning, so town planning focuses on concentrating heavy polluters with waste disposal, landfill, and high-risk operations like chemical factories, away from the residential and commercial districts. When soil tests show the presence of toxic substances, it does not always make sense to launch a clean up operation, at least until levels get so high as to violate EPA regulations.

Instead, what action is to be taken depends on likely it is that the contamination will cause harm. The risk of damage to business and lives must be balanced against the potential impact of such harm occurring and the cost of remedy.

Fortunately, there are many ways you can commence soil remediation following unwelcome test results, with potentially cheaper options available for sites that have a low risk of causing harm.

Ideally, the leading soil testing labs will be able to advise you on which of these is the most appropriate for a given site.

In extreme cases, it may be necessary to completely excavate the affected soil, and seal it in below ground pits or an alternative waste storage repository. This is the method used to decontaminate areas affected by radiation and radioactive fallout, such as nuclear test zones, and the aftermath of nuclear power plant accidents.

Modern landfills are usually interleaved with layers of thick plastic membranes where there is a risk of contaminants reaching the groundwater, thus spreading.

Agricultural soil affected by excessive fertilizers and pesticides can be reconditioned by flushing with large quantities of water, as the containments tend to be concentrated water-soluble salts. Some contaminants can be bound in place with the addition of cement, while other harmful substances can be broken down by burning, rinsing with biodegradable chemical solvents, or with the addition of microbial agents into the soil.



Rhoda Soh

Mimi Rothschild asked:


Homeschooling parents often wonder what the significance of their homeschooler’s IQ score really means. In order for homeschooling parents to understand what an IQ score really means in terms of intelligence, they must first understand how an IQ score is determined. After learning how it is determined, homeschooling parents can then understanding the true meaning of their homeschooler’s IQ score.

Homeschooling parents need to first realize that a test that measures a student’s intelligence quotient focuses on a student’s verbal and mathematical skills. It is a standardized test that has frequently been used to “label” students in the public school setting. Unfortunately, the intelligence quotient tests are often extremely biased and they do not accurately determine an individual’s intelligence.

An IQ test does not accurately define how smart a homeschooler is. Just because a homeschooler may not perform well on an IQ test, it doesn’t mean that they are doomed to a poor existence! The IQ test does not factor in important skills and talents that an individual has and therefore gives a score that is erroneous and incapable of defining ones intelligence. What about a student’s musical abilities or artistic talents? What about a student’s socialization skills and the ability to understand themselves as they interact with the world? Such tests fail miserably to measure a student’s real intelligence because they do not account for a student’s emotional intelligence, nor do such standardized tests account for a homeschooler’s creative abilities. Finally, an IQ test does not factor in a student’s own determination and will to succeed.

Many psychologists lean toward Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences and they also argue that intelligence can not be defined by a single test. Howard Gardner argued the theory that people have several levels of intelligence including Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence, Mathematical-Logical Intelligence, Musical Intelligence, Visual-Spatial Intelligence, Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence, Interpersonal Intelligence, Intrapersonal Intelligence, Naturalist Intelligence, and Existential Intelligence. Further, since the average intelligence test only focuses on the verbal, visual, and mathematical skills of the student, it can hardly be considered an accurate interpretation of a student’s real intelligence level.

Ultimately, the homeschooler’s intelligence quotient is an irrelevant quotient-it means absolutely nothing as far as the student’s overall potential. Parents shouldn’t be overly concerned if their children don’t ace an intelligence exam. After all, even Einstein failed seventh math and was labeled nothing more than an average student.



Pamela