GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

[devonin]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

I wonder how often your errors in English come from your use of writing as "Speaking in text" and thus occasionally disregard rules of written language in favour of modelling your writing as close as possible to how you would say it out loud.

As a Canadian, I'm not at all familiar with the way GPA maps onto numerical average, but unless a 4.0 is in fact only and precisely a 100% (which I doubt) I most certainly had a 4.0 coming out of highschool. Since then, in several years of university, I can only claim that I've become both more knowledgeable and more intelligent, and yet my marks are substantially lower than they were in highschool.

That alone is enough to show me how GPA doesn't correlate to intelligence, or even necessarily knowledge. I find it rather akin to claiming a salary means you're a more skilled worker.

[Relambrien]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

For reference, here's how GPA works in America.

The majority of schools use grading systems based on percentage averages on assignments given. The total number of "points" earned divided by the total number of "points" available gives this percentage.

Letter grades are attached to certain percentage ranges. These vary between schools, but here are the most common ones I've seen.

A - 93-100%; 90-100%
B - 85-92%; 80-89%
C - 77-84%; 70-79%
D - 70-76%; 60-69%
F - Below 70%; below 60%

Each of these letter grades corresponds to a specific point value in the GPA system. 0 for F, 1 for D, 2 for C, 3 for B, 4 for A. The average of your GPA in each class is your overall GPA. Most schools also monitor Year-to-date GPA and cumulative GPA throughout high school.

So here's an example. A person got 3 As, 2 Bs, and 1 D in his classes.

3 4.0s, 2 3.0s, and 1 1.0. These average out to 3.166...if I'm not mistaken, so that's his overall GPA.

So no, 4.0 is not a perfect 100%. Some schools add extra GPA points for honors, AP, or IB classes, but still consider it to be out of a 4.0 scale. So you can have a GPA higher than 100%.

[devonin]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

A - 93-100%; 90-100%
B - 85-92%; 80-89%
C - 77-84%; 70-79%
D - 70-76%; 60-69%
F - Below 70%; below 60%

Now -this- is interesting to me, because here it has -always- been the case that letters correspond like so:

A - 80-100%
B - 70-79%
C - 60-69%
D - 50-59%
F - 0-49%

The only exception I've ever come across in Canada has been when I was in Air Cadets, when our courses put failing grades at below 60%

This raises a very interesting question to me, namely: If I submit a paper in Canada, and get a 70% and thus a B, if I submitted the same paper to the same course in the same year in the United states, what mark would I get?

If the difference in the system is indicative of simply a narrowing of the mark bands, then I ought to get an 85%/80% in each of Relambrien's examples, because the quality is the same regardless of who marks the paper. If however, the numbers are intended to be the same, and just the requirements to get grades are substantially more strict, then I'd still get a 70%, just I'd get a D/C as my letter grade.

I'm -assuming- that the difference is cosmetic, and A-level work is A-level work in both systems, and just where I'd get an 80-100 you'd get a 93/90-100.

What this suggests to me though is that our system is better because it allows for a finer distinction between each student's work. If you only have a range of 30% in which everyone who meets your expectations must fall, your marks less accurately reflect the comparison between each student's work than you do in a range of 50%

[tsugomaru]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

For a subjective class such as English and History, grades are probably cosmetics in that case because A-level work will be given A-level grades, no doubt about that. However, for objective classes like Math, it may be a little more lenient because grades can be given based on how well you do on tests. The 80% allows you to get more errors on math tests while still maintaining that A.

However, I never went to school in Canada so I don't know how that works.

~Tsugomaru

[DayMan951]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Also, don't forget those who like to throw their IQ around like it is a concrete representation of their intelligence - I've noticed that people who openly boast about their GPA's and IQ's in order to belittle someone are the same people that are, in real life, the ones that are social outcasts. Kind of an interesting relationship.

As a side note, are you asking CT a question? Or making a statement?

*cough*damanwithdaskillz*cough*

As probably already mentioned,(I haven't read through all the posts) I don't think GPA reflects actual intelligence at all. I could probably get a 3.5 or higher if I really tried(I'm at about a 2.0). The thing is, I don't apply myself and that's why my GPA isn't that good.

[Cosmic M]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

GPA has almost nothing to do with true intelligence. It just has to do with how good you are at school, no different than being good at basketball or painting. Grades are so arbitrary and subjective, that you cant use them as a measure of intelligence, just how good a certain student is at pleasing a teacher. GPA is also fundamentally flawed because it is so easy to boost. In my school, if you are in band or choir, you get an automatic A in the class, no matter how crappy or gifted you are at singing or your particular instrument. So kids just take those classes who cant even play and get A's, which is worth the same as an A in math or English, and get a boost. I know kids who are infinitely stupider than me that have higher GPA's because of this.

Have you ever seen the poster on a teacher's wall that says, "I don't give out grades, you earn them." That is the single most bull**** statement of all time.

EDIT: Also, IQ is a MUCH better way of classifying intelligence than GPA.

[Bynary Fission]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Cosmic M, you have a good point. The teachers today are weak. They acquiesce to their student's wants so they look 'cool', or so they don't get reprimanded. Teachers give grades to students when they don't deserve it.
Your GPA has no correlation to your intelligence. Albert Einstein was said to fail math (Though it isn't true, they reversed the way the system was done with measuring grades). But you get my point. People have always assumed that your GPA is a measure of your intelligence. That is just not so. IQ is better, but still a number. It is a number generated by a test that is excessively limited in what it measures, and it's from the flawed field of psychology. The brain is beyond our current understanding, and may always be.
Really, GPA and IQ can't really measure intelligence. Some IQ tests have shown my IQ to be as low as 120, but I personally believe it's at least 165, if not higher. I know myself. My intrapersonal intelligence is good enough so that I can look within myself and know what my intelligence is. There is no one way to measure intelligence. GPA can show intelligence to a minimal degree. IQ is somewhat more accurate, though it fails to take in enough fields of intelligence and thought to be reliable. It's up to you, not others, to determine your intelligence. If you know yourself well, you know what you are capable of. You know what you can do and what you have knowledge of.


My point is, don't let a number determine if you are intelligent or not.


~Bynary Fission

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

I feel gypped. I got a 100.0% in high school and that translated to a 4.0. Should have gone for the 93 I guess.

EDIT: Oh yea and I have an IQ of 136 if you want comparison.

[masamursha]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

uhhhh 120 is definitely not low

and 165 is exceptionally high

[devonin]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

I've had various tests with varying degrees of officialness put me anywhere from 110 to 190 (Mind you, since all the reputable tests don't actually go that high, obviously that was some shady online one that doesn't know what it is talking about)

Point is, no one test is going to tell you anything useful anyway, even if you want to assume they are accurate. You'd need to take several tests, several times each, over the course of say a year, to come up with something a little more likely to be the case.

[Bynary Fission]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Guys, I know. I don't have a clue as to what a professional IQ test would tell me. But it's a number. I really do believe my IQ is 165+. I've done self-assessments of myself for years, and it seems like an accurate figure. I know myself, and I exercise my brain every day with anything from the simple to the extremely advanced.

All_That_Chaz: That's great that you got a 4.0. Don't feel gypped, you earned it. But still, it's all relative, IQ and everything.

But people measure people's worth and intellect by a stupid number, whether it be IQ, GPA, or some other miscellaneous figure. I don't care what any IQ test says. It's most likely incorrect. Granted, it may be correct. But you know who you are, and that's all that matters. If you truly and honestly believe you are smarter or dumber than what the IQ test says, then you're probably right. Not the test.

~Bynary Fission

@Devonin: IQ tests actually go higher than 190. But almost nobody scores that high. If you did, you'd be in the Giga Society or something.

[devonin]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

As I said: Most reputable tests. Not all of them.

The Stanford-Binet goes from 40-160 for example.

One of the "extreme IQ" organisations, the Mega Society claims to only accept those who are in the 99.9999th percentile, thus, 1 person in 1 million, however, they accept untimed, unsupervised IQ tests (Which most standard accepted ones are not) and they also have their own test which they forumulated specifically to give to people seeking entry.

Whether someone who scores a sufficient grade on their test would also show the same results on other tests is open to debate, and depending on the standard deviations of the test in question, it is possible to score a perfectly correct result on their test and still not read as high enough to qualify for these super elite clubs and groups.

I mean..."We only take people that scored in the 99.9999th percentile on a test that claims to be able to measure to the 99.9999th percentile" doesn't, to me anyway, prove that their IQ is sufficiently high, or that they'd score that well on any other test.

[Bynary Fission]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Agreed. Those societies are stupid, just because you have a high IQ doesn't make you better than everybody else. I don't take IQ tests simply because it's not necessary.




~Bynary Fission

[All_That_Chaz]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

In all due respect, you probably shouldn't be making claims about how high your IQ is if you refuse to take IQ tests.

[Cosmic M]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

I don't know you bynary so I can't say for sure, but I do know IQ tests and can say with some confidence that you do not have a 165+ IQ. I consider myself a very intelligent person, so I took an IQ test. Not some crappy online one (do not believe any of those), a real one given to me by the school, and since I go to public school, it is approved by the government (as far as that will take you these days ).

My point is that it is legit, I scored 125 which is in the 95th percentile. No offense but you would have to be some sort of genius to get a 165. Like a child prodigy type thing such as Mozart who composed symphonies at age 5, or one of those Asian kids who graduated high school when they were 10 and college at 12, that sort of genius.