Schools are typically all about comparing students’ intelligence with numbers. When a child enters school, he or she will be given all different types of tests to determine where he or she falls in the percentage compared to other students.
In most cases schools never actually put an IQ number to match an average student’s intelligence. However, when it is needed to get a better understanding of exactly how smart or intelligent someone is, an IQ test is often administered. An IQ test may be used when it is thought that a person is over or under intelligent.
The test was created in 1905 by a French psychologist. His purpose was to design a test so that average learners could be separated from slow learners. The original test examined skills that students would use on a daily basis in a classroom. His test was so accurate and beneficial in testing the success that a child would have in school that it began being used to test intelligence in other areas than the general classroom.
Other versions were soon created and used in colleges. There were also versions created specifically for adults, school age children, and preschoolers.
One popular misconception about an IQ score is that it can tell you how much smarter you are than someone else. While most measurements can be compared, an IQ score is different. If one child is 5 feet tall and another child is 4 feet tall, we can confidently say that one child is a foot taller than the other. However, if one child scores 130 on an IQ test and another child scores 120, we cannot accurately say that one child is ten units smarter than the other. We can assume that one child may have a bit more success in school than the other.