GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

[slipstrike0159]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

However, it makes a clear distinction between 'intelligences' and 'skills'. For example, you often hear people talk about 'emotional intelligence', but most people in the field agree this is not an intelligence, but a learned skill. Thus the goal is to minimize culture saturated items that you purposely learn and concentrate on g loaded items that are resistant to study.
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Yes but what is intelligence if it is not a learned skill anyway? An intelligent person in the ways of math became intelligent by learning the skill, and by learning you have to have actually heard it, studied it, interpreted it, and retained the knowledge. Such a process and processes similar to that are how people become 'intelligent' in a subject anyway.

Aside from that, i have never heard of this test, where might i find a place to take it?

Also about Lahrls equation, while i agree that work ethic has everything to do with anything, in some circumstances you can work as hard as you possibly can to learn a concept or a subject and because of your own understanding deficiencies you will never be able to learn it in the surroundings you are in. Because of this, if you cannot understand the concept the teacher is trying to teach, you WILL NOT do well in the class and as such will receive a less than perfect grade.

[Laharl]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Well, in that case, you're just a failure and aren't going to succeed in the open market that is the United States. Let's face it: if you're having those kinds of struggles, you're most likely not cut out to be a brain surgeon.

I wish I wasn't as smart as I am so I wouldn't feel like so many jobs available are beneath me. No matter how hard I try, I can't work in the food industry for more than 2 months before I get incredibly burnt out and fed up with it, and it's really hurting my life because they are the only places I can find a ****ing job.

[t0ni]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

who gives a crap about GPA, its all about getting your B.A. or B.S., high school is a joke anyway, you know how easy it is compared to college.

[devonin]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

who gives a crap about GPA, its all about getting your B.A. or B.S., high school is a joke anyway, you know how easy it is compared to college.

Um...you have a GPA in college as well. The purpose of the discussion isn't about whether your GPA is important or not, it is about whether a high GPA is indicative of a high degree of intelligence, or I suppose conversely, whether a high degree of intelligence is necessary to have a high GPA.

The people who are posting in this thread give a crap, so either treat the subject with a little respect, or don't post.

[Reach]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Yes but what is intelligence if it is not a learned skill anyway? An intelligent person in the ways of math became intelligent by learning the skill, and by learning you have to have actually heard it, studied it, interpreted it, and retained the knowledge. Such a process and processes similar to that are how people become 'intelligent' in a subject anyway.

Aside from that, i have never heard of this test, where might i find a place to take it?

Also about Lahrls equation, while i agree that work ethic has everything to do with anything, in some circumstances you can work as hard as you possibly can to learn a concept or a subject and because of your own understanding deficiencies you will never be able to learn it in the surroundings you are in. Because of this, if you cannot understand the concept the teacher is trying to teach, you WILL NOT do well in the class and as such will receive a less than perfect grade.

Intelligence can be defined a few ways, but IMO, an elegant definition is: It is what you do when you don't know what to do.

What makes you smarter than a dog? You can teach a dog skills, but you still know you're smarter than the dog. Is it the complexity of the skill? That's getting somewhere, since we know a dog is inherently incapable of grasping spoken language, for example, because it lacks the brain structures to do so.

The difference between you and a dog is your *natural ability* to learn, and to reason with both skills you have acquired and when you have no skills to apply. This is a reflection of what psychologists chunk under 1. Working memory 2. Crystallized intelligence and 3. Fluid intelligence. All of these abilities are limited by your brains capacity, unlike say, 'emotional' skills that you develop through interaction...often with people of completely average intelligence, and thus this is something outside the domain of intelligence. And because it's a limited capacity, it isn't terribly hard to measure, since it manifests itself, at least in some form, in everything that you do. The difficulty comes in isolating factors that are pure intelligence, rather than sets of factors influenced by many things other than intelligence...like social skills, getting good grades, playing badminton really well, etc.

As for the WAIS, it's a professionally administered test. This isn't your standard, invalid IQ test your friend found on the net. You have to see someone qualified to administer the test (i.e. a psychologist) and it costs quite a bit of money. Some schools have psychologists that can administer the test, if you're lucky.

[Relambrien]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

A nice, concise way I've found to differentiate between intelligence vs. skills is this: "A skill is how well you can do something. Intelligence is how easy it is for you to learn to do something." It may not be completely accurate, but it suffices for most situations.

Using another example which I think I stated earlier in this thread, take two people. One is an adult fluent in Spanish. One is a high school student studying Spanish. The adult found Spanish difficult to learn and it took him a long time to become fluent, whereas the student is learning the language without difficulty. Who has more "Spanish intelligence" in that case? The student, because it comes easier to him, even though he knows less.

Knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing.

[Reach]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

A nice, concise way I've found to differentiate between intelligence vs. skills is this: "A skill is how well you can do something. Intelligence is how easy it is for you to learn to do something." It may not be completely accurate, but it suffices for most situations.

Using another example which I think I stated earlier in this thread, take two people. One is an adult fluent in Spanish. One is a high school student studying Spanish. The adult found Spanish difficult to learn and it took him a long time to become fluent, whereas the student is learning the language without difficulty. Who has more "Spanish intelligence" in that case? The student, because it comes easier to him, even though he knows less.

Knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing.

What you're referring to is mostly Working Memory. There are other components to intelligence as well, though all of them are highly correlated with one another.

I should also point out that language acquisition can be can become a bad example, since as we age we all lose the ability to grasp syntax in another language. It's mostly an ability you have when you're younger.


But uh yea, I think we have all clearly distinguished between a skill and intelligence now. GPA is a skill and not an intelligence, plain and simple. There are other factors that go into obtaining it, and thus diluting its ability to measure intelligence...much like how good you are at basketball doesn't measure your intelligence (even though it requires intelligence to play.)

[Relambrien]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

What you're referring to is mostly Working Memory. There are other components to intelligence as well, though all of them are highly correlated with one another.

Yes, like I said, my definition isn't completely accurate, but works for the majority of situations most people would need the definition for.

I should also point out that language acquisition can be can become a bad example, since as we age we all lose the ability to grasp syntax in another language. It's mostly an ability you have when you're younger.

Then change Spanish to calculus; the concept's the same. When I use examples, I tend to assume that people can look beyond the surface of the example and see the actual concept beneath it. I'm not very good at creating examples otherwise.

[xion6432]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

School in general is like a board game such as Candy Land. Just about anyone can play Candy Land. You need little thinking ability as things are laid out in front of you. All you have to do is draw your card and move your piece. Getting a good GPA is like playing Candy Land. All you have to do is listen and do your work. Simply because all you’re learning is trivial knowledge that requires no more than a small memory.

As for an intellect, that is more of a strategy game. Not many people can grasp an idea such as GO, Chess, or Shoji. They require a more expansive mind and the ability to think things in a less logical manner, such as predicting an opponent’s move. Yes these games require 'skill' to play, but a far greater intellect is necessary to play well. Any idiot can play Candy Land and do well. Any idiot can play chess, but they won't necessarily be good at it.

A GPA measures nothing but the ability to retain trivial things, and work.

[Reach]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Yes, like I said, my definition isn't completely accurate, but works for the majority of situations most people would need the definition for.



Then change Spanish to calculus; the concept's the same. When I use examples, I tend to assume that people can look beyond the surface of the example and see the actual concept beneath it. I'm not very good at creating examples otherwise.

I wasn't really trying to criticize your example, but add to it >_> But I think I sounded that way, so sorry.

It's because working memory isn't what composes the whole of your intelligence. A computer, for example, can learn much faster than you depending on the context, and has a much greater working memory capacity (It's analogous to RAM)...but we as humans have fluid and crystallized reasoning ability that a computer doesn't (i.e. the computer cannot take information and apply it without first being told by the programmer what to do...yet >_>).

[ieatyourlvllol]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

Right, since a computer is fundamentally a set of circuitry and memory units that inputs and outputs information based solely upon electronic stimuli [(the variations in which are essentially affected by humans, rather than outside influences (which would instead indicate adaptability)]. In that sense, a computer is more efficient, explaining its consequent dominance in regard to processing speed, but it does only what it is told - nothing more, nothing less.

A human, on the other hand, is capable of changing and rewiring thought processes based on impressions received from the environment. In that respect, memory plays a critical role, since it can be called upon as a reference through which further insight may be attained, but it is the ability to interpret (and give a subjective definition to) the memory that separates the cold, precise CPU's of computers from the dynamic, fluid minds of humans. That being said, memory is simply a specific facility of knowledge, which encompasses all data that a person has absorbed. Intelligence, then, is the ability to apply knowledge according to the situation it concerns.

As Reach stated quite well, working memory is not all that falls under the term of intelligence, but rather, a part that, when combined with other faculties (which have been discussed earlier in this thread), serves as the foundation upon which a person's mindset and cognitive function is built. Thus, attempting to gauge intelligence by merely measuring working memory would be akin to trying to assess a painting with the metrics of a couple guidelines rather than taking it in as a whole. Therein lies the fault in most of the existing tests (less so for those that stray further from the purely objective). Similarly, GPA, taken for its quantitative value, indicates performance on tests, homework, etc., but does not necessitate intelligence. Therefore, GPA reflects intelligence only if the applicative effort of the person is known, and even then there are factors that will skew the accuracy of the correlation.

P.S. - In retrospect, I think I might have overelaborated >_>.

[hi19hi19]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

A number is only a measure of how well you fit the test.

In this case, GPA is largely a measure of how good you are at pleasing the school system. This may seem cynical, but it's also fairly true. Sure intellegence, hard work, dedication, they all play into it, but it really is just a measure of how well you take classes.

[Laharl]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

I just realized I never answered the original question.

No, I don't think GPA is an accurate representation of your intelligence. You can be a failure and be exceptionally smart. The opposite is true, as well. That said, the two tend to go hand-in-hand because the smartest people tend to want to get ahead in life, which means working hard in school, which equates to a higher GPA, which equates to more prestigious careers.

[KlingPosnot]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

I actually get above a 4.0 in school because I am taking multiple A.P. classes and quite frankly...I put very little extra effort into my work...I do the bare minimum I think I can get a good grade with...I do not however, consider myself to have above-average-intelligence mainly because although I know what I should do (what an intelligent person would do) I tend to do things that I find would be considered pretty dumb a lot of times...without meaning to...In other words...I may be book smart, but I am definitely not street smart. (Im to lazy to put in the effort to learn to be street smart when I don't have to lol)

[tofurox]

Re: GPA's accuracy reflecting intelligence.

The scale should go up to 5.0 (honors and crap, like aT my school).

I aint that smart though.... I am in Honors spanish, math and english....

Only 3.5ish gpa.