IQ Test Quiz - How to Increase IQ by 40%

How to increase IQ? Is this question a non-starter?

First let's all start by agreeing on three common-sense observations:
1. People differ in how smart they are.
2. How smart someone is doesn't change - it's consistent, and it's innate.
3. How to increase IQ is a non-starter. I mean, yes, you can build on your skill base and increase your knowledge, but to actually increase intelligence? Highly doubtful.

In this article I want to try to convince you that your common sense assumptions need to be reassessed. My goal here is not to persuade you to change your beliefs; it is simply to give you enough reason to reassess these assumptions and be open to the idea that the question 'How to increase IQ?' is worth a closer look.

Remember the smart kids?

There have been situations in the past where what has been difficult or impossible for you has been easy or possible for someone else - someone THAT YOU KNOW. Think about any class in high school or college that you took that you found hard, or that you just scraped through or failed. Now call to mind someone who aced that class and was clearly not struggling to do well. Remembering this person shouldn't be difficult because everyone in the class KNEW that this person was smart. Why? Because they consistently got the top grades - not just in that class but other classes. I'm talking about the people who CONSISTENTLY excelled in their exams and course work - who were straight A students. In my math classes - as in other classes - the individual I have in mind is Greg James. In fact there are two or three of them. But this guy stands out. He was smarter than me.

And it's not that Greg was clever one year, and then average the next. He was consistently smart - he got an A every time. If he didn't it was a surprise to everyone, and it never happened again. Being smart doesn't come and go depending on circumstance. Highly intelligent people continue to perform in highly intelligent ways. There are of course some highly intelligent people who are like athletes with talent who do not put much effort into training. There are smart people who don't study and who are not motivated to involve themselves in class. But they STILL do well.

Why? The obvious answer is that intelligence is built in: it's in the genes. These people are born smart. Greg didn't get help from his parents when he was 11 to 'become highly intelligent'. He started high school clever, and he finished high school clever. He maintained a reputation for being clever throughout. There was no 'up and down' in between. Greg was just smart. And it showed itself in many ways other than grades too. Greg liked chess. He liked roll-playing games. And he was always playing around with chemicals. When you played with Greg, you knew it was going to be a cognitive challenge.

So let us agree the common sense tells us that:
1. Some people are smarter than others.
2. How smart something is isn't something that changes from week to week or year to year - it's innate. And
3. The question: 'How to increase IQ?' is a non-starter.

What happened to those very smart people we knew?

Now think about those smart people in back in high school or college. What happened to them in the real world? How did their lives pan out and how are they doing compared to you? If you don't know, you could try doing a search on the web to track them down.

But let's continue with common sense, which tells us:
1. Chances are they are a PROFESSIONAL of some sort: a doctor, lawyer, accountant, executive, researcher or academic, something like this. Greg became someone highly qualified in computer engineering.
2. Chances are they are doing what they WANT to be doing. This is perhaps the most notable of the two points here. Highly intelligent people tend to be more autonomous. Being smart opens up choices, and with more choices there is more chance of ending up doing the job you want, rather than a compromise job - or a job you can't stand. The smart ones may not all be earning a lot of money, but they are likely to be doing a job they LIKE - that gives them a lot of satisfaction.

Time for reflection

It's time to reflect on the question: Are YOU the professional you wanted to be? And are YOU doing a job that you genuinely WANT to be doing - that gives you a deeper sense of satisfaction? If you won the proverbial lottery tomorrow, would you continue doing your job for another five years, or would you hand in your notice and head off in a different direction? The really smart people I knew at high school and college would STILL be doing what they are now doing now if they won the lottery. Greg enjoys his algorithms far too much to give it all up, under ANY circumstances.

This is an enviable situation to be in. And I'm going to stick my neck out and assume that you're not in fact at that point - if you were to be perfectly honest with yourself. You'd rather have more autonomy, more freedom of movement. There are professional or career accomplishments that you'd very much like to have attained, but haven't.

The value of a high IQ

And more than this - and you may take issue with this - IF you'd been just 15 or 20 IQ points more intelligent, you'd have now been closer to your ideal. You'd have more autonomy and be less a pawn to external forces that have compromised you. This sounds harsh, but let's reflect again on those people we know who were really smart. They ARE autonomous. Do you meet many highly intelligent people who are frustrated with their lot in life - that are passive to fate, or are living a continual compromise? No - they tend to be where they want to be. Why? Not because they are more motivated, but because they are smarter! Being smarter means they learn quicker, act more efficiently, generate opportunities and are better able to make the right decisions to capitalize on those opportunities. Being smart makes a person more strategic and more purposeful.

What is intelligence? What is the advantage of having a high IQ? Here is how Wechsler, the originator of the most famous and widely used clinical online IQ test, defines intelligence. This definition is famous:

"Intelligence is the global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment" (Wechsler, 1944)

Smart people act with purpose in applying their superior cognitive ability, and end up in a PURPOSEFUL life! This is a much overlooked consequence of a lifetime of acting purposefully. This makes them more autonomous and less compromised over time.

How to become more autonomous and acquire more purpose in your life

Now I'm going to give you one very good reason for why you can afford to REASSESS your common sense assumptions about being smart, and why you have reason to believe that you can attain more professional autonomy and more purpose in your life.

The reason is a landmark paper published in 2008 by a team of leading cognitive neuroscientists. They demonstrated that a very specific type of cognitive training can improve how smart a person is dramatically. The article is called 'Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory'. It was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was an article that caused shockwaves in the intelligence research community because it reversed the common sense assumptions we've discussed.

The IQ-working memory connection

Jaeggi and her colleagues figured out how to devise a training method that could effectively increase IQ. They achieved this by cleverly exploiting a recently discovered link between a short term memory system called working memory and intelligence level.

The ability to hold information in mind for brief periods, and manipulate it mentally is a type of short term memory called working memory. We differ in our working memory capacity, and these differences are related to IQ level. General intelligence - how smart a person is - depends critically on our working memory capacity. Every single time we reason, plan or problem solve we draw on our working memory capacity. The more capacity we have the easier these cognitive tasks are.

Working memory and IQ are also now known to both share the same brain circuitry - part of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain.

The logic of how to increase IQ by 40% with a conclusion that might change your life

The logic is simple: If you can improve your working memory capacity by training it directly, you can as a consequence increase your IQ level. In technical terms there is a 'transfer effect' from working memory training to intelligence and IQ.

By training on a carefully designed working memory exercise, it is now known you can increase your working memory capacity by over 65% in just 20 days of training. This finding was remarkable in itself, but even more remarkable is that this improvement has a remarkable side effect: a clear 40% gain in intelligence.

And the effect is LONG LASTING. Subsequent studies have shown that this training results in long term changes in pre-frontal brain circuitry.

Conclusion

So the science says this working memory training really does make you smarter. You have good reason to reassess your common sense assumptions about your intelligence level and what it can do for your life. It certainly transformed my life, and enabled me to get onto track again in terms of my professional autonomy and freedom to be where I wanted to be. The training helped me not only get smarter PERMANENTLY - but also redirect my life in a purposeful, strategic way. I was so impressed by the effects of this software on my life, that I set up a company that supplies it online - High IQ Pro.