IQ Madness

So I took this online IQ test today, and found out that I have no patience with tests at all anymore *laughs* The funny thing is, when I first saw the thing, I just clicked on answers based on my gut feelings the first time without putting much thought into it at all...just read and clicked and boom, I ended up with a higher IQ than I did when I really took the test. *grin* I don't think these tests are a good judge of intelligence. But here is mine:

Your IQ Is 125

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Below Average Your General Knowledge is Exceptional

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

I suppose most of the summary is true, since I despise math in nearly all its form except cooking. As for the logic, I thought I was a fairly logical person haha. The verbal intelligence? Self-evident to me, I've been called a grammar Nazi by a couple of people to date, and I write pretty consistently.

Unlike most of the general populace I regularly come into contact with the more unused facets of language through my studies of the ancient world, mythology, and by simply being an avid reader. Not to say that there aren't plenty of readers out there, but I've noticed that while they do come into contact with the same words I do, such as "loquacious", "cacophony", and "disaggregate", they fail to do more than to glean what they need from context and speed ahead. Now, I'm not saying that's wrong...I do the same thing myself when reading a particularly toothsome tale...but it's simply part of my nature to research things. I just file the word away for later. Why? Well, it would seriously peeve me while spinning a story to lack a word, and just know there's one out there to suit my needs.

It's not just that. It has been bugging me for the past couple of years, as I've been playing MMORPGs that even more people are ignoring the true meaning of words and replacing them with gamer definitions! Let me explain: In video games, a "tank" is a character created with the primary responsibility to absorb and take damage dealt by the adversary so that other group members don'’t have to. Ok. So last week, when I asked someone I'd met in-game how their job interview went (yes, gamers do talk about real-life events in-game), they said they tanked it. Tanked? Naturally my mind goes to the dictionary definition:

tank
Function: verb
transitive verb
1 : to place, store, or treat in a tank
2 : to make no effort to win : lose intentionally <tanked the match>
intransitive verb
1 : to lose intentionally : give up in competition
2 : to suffer rapid decline, failure, or collapse tanked>

So...I consoled him.
Of course he'd meant he'd faced the interview down and came out victorious. *grin* So I ended up rather embarrassedly congratulating him. But- really. Upon further clarification to him on why the miscommunication occurred I was amazed that he had no clue what I was talking about. He'd thought that the term was invented for video games!
His age? 33.

This is much worse than thinking that the world "melee" (a confused struggle; a hand-to-hand fight among several people) is pronounced "mee·lee" instead of the correct form "mê·lée" ('mA-"lA, mA-'). I mean, how many people use that word in a common sense. Unless you happen to work at Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament hehe.

Well, that was my little rant. Now you can poke at me for not knowing what a prime number is still. I knew that one, I did! My mind just wouldn't keep it. It said, "HA! Numbers! Not for you!", and promptly forgot it for me.

/sigh