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These are some girl names that I have been thinking of...not sold on any of them yet...not even sure that the baby is going to be a girl....anyway, what do you think?

Homily

Adalayne

Raelyn

Medelayne

Adalee

Some of them I just made up...

Does anyone know where I can find information about the reliability and validity of the MENSA test? I know that if you google "reliability validity wisc-iv" you can easily find information about the reliability and validity of the wechsler scales. That also works for any of the other major tests of cognitive abilities. But for some reason, it's not easy to find that kind of information for the MENSA test. Anyone know why that might be?

I got a whole lot of stuff that I want. I know I'm not getting most of it:

A new computer, camera equipment, books, concert tickets, mp3 player...you name it.

So, what do you want Santa to leave under your tree this Xmas?

I am going to be getting a new laptop for Christmas. I'm wondering what kinds of hardware features are important to consider if I want to assure that I will be able to run multiple applications at the same time without slowing down my machine too much.

So, for example, if I want to run Word, Powerpoint, the internet, and maybe SPSS all simultaneously without slowing down, what types of things would affect that?

I am a graduate student in my third year of a doctoral program in school psychology. I have been promised a new laptop for Christmas and am currently trying to figure out what I want.

I'm thinking that I will want to stay around the $600 range. Here's what I will probably need:

Primarily, I will be using my laptop for creating documents. Some of those documents will contain confidential information, so it would be good to have some sort of protection regarding people having access to my system.

Also, since this will be a personal computer, I will use it to store music and pictures. I have about 13GB of music, and use a Nikon D40 camera. I take quite a few pictures.

Other than that, I don't need anything too high tech. I'm not really a gamer; I don't IM; I'm not going to watch movies on my computer.

Basically, beyond what I've mentioned, I'll just be using it to surf the internet, check emails, and store documents. I'll probably be downloading a lot of pdf files of academic research.

So, what should I look for? What is out there that's good and within my price range?

Mensa tests tend to measure a limited number of constructs related to IQ. They tend to measure what's referred to as "acquired knowledge" (abbreviated Gc). Even questions that relate to reasoning skills or memory skills are largely reliant on acquired knowledge. A couple of examples of this: if you are given a question about a number sequence, and which number comes next, people who have previously been exposed to this type of problem are more likely to know how to answer it. So, it's less a measure of how to reason through the problem, and more a measure of exposure. Also, in the same situation, say the question requires you to have a working understanding of exponents (finding a number in a series requires you to deduce that each number is the cube of a sequence 1, 2, 3, 4...etc.). That is supposed to measure reasoning skills. What it actually measures is how much knowledge you have in the area of mathematics since people who have a lot of familiarity with math would be able to answer it quicker, and would be more likely to get it right with less actual reasoning skill involved. Again, the question is not measuring what it's supposed to.

So, we see that these types of IQ tests measure a lot of Gc, which is only one part of what makes up intelligence. They also might measure some quantitative reasoning (abbreviated Gq), which is related to a type of acquired knowledge in the area of math. Like Gc, this is something that anyone can learn with varied degrees of effort and practice.

What IQ tests like the mensa test cannot measure are things that are strongly associated with intelligence, such as short-term memory (which would be measured by you having to repeat increasingly complex series of information immediately after being presented the information), long-term retrieval (which would be measured by you being taught some kind of skill and then being measured on your ability to use the newly acquired skill), reaction speed (where you would be given a very short amount of time to complete as many items of a very simple task as you could), good reasoning skills (which would involve you working with items that were unrelated to other constructs such as words or numbers), and finally auditory processing (in which you would have to listen to information and work with what you've heard in some way).

Normal IQ tests don't even measure Gq, because it is so iffy whether its a measure of quantitative knowledge, working memory, or a combination of the two, and thus you can't get a reliable measure of it. Tests of achievement measure Gq, which is interesting because mensa does not allow achievement test results...ironic, really since their tests heavily rely on Gq, as well as Gc, and to some extend visual-spacial ability (Gv). They are more achievement oriented than ability oriented.

Beyond all at, real IQ tests are not multiple choice, they do not give you just one score (they actually give you scores on all the different constructs they measure), and are administered and scored in a standardized manner based on the taker's age-level. Thus your scores are based on a comparison against a norm group at the taker's age level, not against all people who have taken the test.

Since the mensa test is no more than an online IQ test taken with pencil and paper in the presence of a glorified babysitter whose only job is to make sure you are not cheating, and since the test doesn't even come close to measuring what it purports to measure, why do people put so much stock in it?

Surely, intelligent people would recognize when an organization is just trying to make money off of them...

So many people want to know what their IQ score is. Or, they want to know if an IQ score that they received is a good one. What do you think the fascination is with IQ scores? What does a high IQ score do for you?

What does it mean to be smart? What types of things go into making a person intelligent?

How do you define intelligence and what does it mean to you to be "intelligent?"

I'm interested in finding out reasons why people choose to not have their cats fixed. The reason that I'm wondering this is because the cost of having the procedure done is fairly inexpensive (between $30 and $70) and helps to prevent so many problems that end up being much more expensive in the long run. Also, considering that many good vets allow owners to make payments (especially for a preventative predure that they would highly recommend having done), I just don't see how cost could be considered a realistically valid excuse.

I also can't think of any other valid reason to not have the procedure done. So, can anyone please enlighten me?