I know that feel, bro.
Not that I dropped out of uni, of course. That was for losers. 
But through my school career I repeatedly had disagreements with teachers about making me work through the boring stuff to get to the more challenging material. I reckon smart but lazy would sum me up. I’ve never felt like I’ve hard to work all that hard but people pay me quite a lot of money (not a bazillion dollars, mind). I don’t know why.
Once again I am led to wonder how we three would get along IRL. Ever the optimist, I like to think we’d get on like a house on fire and figure out how to cure cancer with moon rocks and rubber bands or something. But then I end up thinking we’d immediately start looking askance at each other… these arrogant, narcissistic pinheads who think they’re all that, with terrible taste in music/cheese/beer/movies/sex practices and egos way, way out of line with their actual social value as human beings.
Love you guys anyway. I’ll let you know if I ever crack into a six-figure salary, or otherwise exhibit any of the potential that that 1500 test score led me to expect.
At least my kids are cute. 
Who is the third? Donald Sutherland?
You, ya turd.
Took me until my 30s to graduate from college, and only then through a correspondence school that let me test out of everything via GRE Subject Tests. Was a terrible student, lazy and bored. Returned to college at 30, thinking, “I’ll be more mature and a better student.” But no. Still bored.
How did you guess my wife’s catch phrase when she talks to me!?
When I’m back down in LA I’ll send a note :). I know a lot of actors—i mean bartenders down there.
Whose pillow talk did you think she got it from? 
I tried again when I was 31. I just. Couldn’t do it.
Them “Solve this equation”
Me “Okay, perl -e several for loops later solved”
Them “That’s not what I meant!”
Me “Then ask a different question!”
Them “Write an essay”
Me “Okay, here.”
Them “It has a split infinitive”
Me “Google searches… 1.15 billion results with this turn of phrase. Aaaaand?”
I really thought that this would be the first response here:
Get new parents!
You’re right. Higher score does not correlate perfectly with college admission to “better places.” If we got our hands on that data, my guess is that it would correlate somewhat, but that there would be huge groups with lower scores who went to top-rated places, and huge groups with higher scores who did not. It would be a big cloud of dots, not a narrow bubble.
Some years ago I went to a teaching clinic for some sliding scale counseling. I was going through a rough bit, emotionally and financially, so they were the only real choice. In addition to counseling, they required that I do an IQ test. It didn’t make much sense, except that being a teaching institution, I figured it was more for the students than for me, and it was part of the price for cheap therapy.
One of the questions on the test was “who wrote Faust?” I remember thinking, this has nothing to do with intelligence. There was a section on manipulating little shapes and deciding which orientation went next, some math, some language, but the cultural literacy part seemed so skewed. There are people far more brilliant than I who don’t know who wrote Faust. The dude administering the test didn’t know (I spelled Goethe for him to write down) but that didn’t make him a less effective counselor. He helped me a lot; he was plenty smart enough for the task at hand.
Ever since then, I think of IQ tests as bullshit, especially the bourgeois section that didn’t test for anything so much as a classical, liberal arts education. I felt good about my score, and needed a little ego boost at the time, but it’s not a measure of how smart I am or am not.
I did an official IQ (WAIS IV) test last year and a big chunk of the verbal reasoning part was a general knowledge session, heavy on basic science things (how does it take for light from the sun to travel to earth, what is the circumference of the earth). So there’s definitely scope for personal improvement there.
How useful the end result is is another matter. I think it says something about a person’s potential but the final number is the least useful part.
One of the questions on my IQ test, when I was in grade two: “Who fiddled while Rome burnt” - because knowing the answer to that is an indication of intelligence somehow?
Seriously. Especially at such a young age, that seems weird. One would think that actual intelligence would be measured in a way that makes sense with respect to age.
It was the early 80s, I think the only nod they gave to age/development was if the questions were beyond your reading ability you got to do the test orally and they wrote your answers down. Which I find ironic. Ability to read = nothing to do with intelligence. Ability to answer questions about history = totally smrt omg!
Why would you want to increase your IQ? Seriously, it sounds like an utter waste of time to work towards that, instead of just constantly spending your life learning to do things that are interesting to you.
I personally think that practicing not thinking is much more useful than trying to figure out other ways to spend moe time thinking.
On top of that:
How might we prove or disprove the existence of God? Are people basically good?What a wanker.
“Where do I start?”
GET OFF THE FECKIN INTERTUBES.
I need to cut in here and point out that a 16/17/18-year-old, especially with socio-economic disadvantages, should not be expected to know the things you know now as a grown-ass man. Your school counselor is to blame. It was actually his/her JOB to counsel you on your options: academic, financial, and logistic.
Spend some time around high school students to reacquaint yourself with how immature and inexperienced they still are, despite looking like and perceiving themselves as adults.
Always a “What a wanker/loser/tool” comment after articles like this. Near the beginning of the article, I ask “But why would you want to [raise your IQ]?” Here’s to continued success in “practicing not thinking.”
