I've always suspected that folks who disdain the worth of IQ tests are, in fact, merely displeased with their own score. "If the test treats you like that," I hear their mothers say, "Then it's not a very good test, is it?"
In my own family, we all know one another's scores. And I could have accurately stack-ranked its seven members based on visible evidence. But no one I know has an IQ more in-your-face than Beth, who might as well have had "172" tattooed on her forehead when we met as teenagers. And as if to demonstrate the IQ chasm between us, I was always far more interested in her score than she was. Obsessed, really. I would not rest until I beat her at something intellectual. I was accustomed to being The Smart One, and I would be damned if I was going to concede the belt without a fight.
Remember the scene in the Matrix when Neo, bored, fights the agents with one hand behind his back?
Beth always tried to talk me out of yet another humiliating defeat, but the more losses I accrued, the greater my competitive zeal became. No matter the subject matter, I would hit an intellectual wall where relativity or calculus or reading music made no sense to me anymore. Beth had no such wall. She understood every subject perfectly, the first time, from capa to coda. I tried standardized tests. We took writing assessments. We raced to complete a maze printed on McDonald's children's menus. Loss, loss, loss. One time I famously lost a Cosmo quiz on What Guys Really Want in Bed.
"John, stop. I'm begging you. Stop doing this to yourself."
"Fuck you."
"Why is this so important to you? It's like me obsessing over beating you at arm-wrestling."
"Seriously. Fuck you."
As you can plainly see, dear reader, the IQ difference is observable even here. Don't tell me the tests don't mean anything.
Although three years my junior, Beth took the graduate school exam five years before I did. Sigh. Late one night, I checked the mail and found my scores awaiting me. And when I opened that mail, a most succulent, scrumptious, drop-dead gorgeous 800 greeted me. I had somehow blundered into a perfect score on the logic portion of the GRE.
2am, 2 schmay-schmem. I called Beth.
"WHAT DID YOU GET ON THE LOGIC SECTION OF THE GRE?"
"Um. Hi, John?"
"WHAT DID YOU GET ON THE LOGIC SECTION OF THE GRE?"
"Oh, honey, don't ask me that. I don't remember."
"DON'T CONDESCEND TO ME. WHAT DID YOU GET ON THE LOGIC SECTION OF THE GRE?"
"You don't want to know."
"I ASSURE YOU, I MOST DEFINITELY WANT TO KNOW."
She sighed, knowing I wasn't going to rest. "Okay. 800."
"ME TOO!" And phone in hand, I did a victory lap around the room, having finally—finally!—tied my brilliant persecutor. Oh thank god. It's over. I would never challenge her to an intellectual competition again. I would reboot my record and retire a very respectable 0-0-1. And she—
"That's great!" she said. "How many did you miss?"
I lowered my arms. "Hmm?"
"How many did you miss? Your score is curved based on the other folks taking the test."
I squinted at the document. "Two. I missed two."
"That's fantastic, John. Congratulations! I missed one, myself."
And thus did I retire from our competitions with a sterling 0-0-0 record.