In his excellent book A Question of Intelligence: The IQ Debate in America, former Fortune magazine editor Daniel Seligman describes what it’s like to take the WAIS-R IQ test. On page 3 he writes:
The WAIS consists of 11 subtests, each consisting of questions and problems that tend to be easy at first, then grow progressively more difficult. The first subtest, labeled Information, checks your fund of general information and your ability to retrieve it in a reasonable time. (This is one of the subtests bearing on memory.) I turned out to be mortifyingly slow responding to Stern’s first two questions. The first, which concerned the position of the sun in the sky, could have been answered instantly by a neolithic four year-old, but I found myself suddenly caught up in confusion trying to envision shadows falling on New York City streets at different times of day…
(above image found here , part of Chrisford.com)
Seligman continues:
…it took me about three seconds to answer (correctly). After the first two questions, we moved along more rapidly. However, two of my answers (out of the twenty-nine) were wrong. Like the question about the sun in the sky, both involved physical phenomena and reminded me that I was a dumb-bell in seventh-grade science.
According to the WAIS-R manual, a raw score of 27 out of 29, on the Information subtest is assigned a scaled score of 15 (IQ 125- higher than 95% of Americans in the peak age group (20-34)). However Seligman reports that he was 64 when he took the WAIS-R, and I found that his age adjusted IQ on this one subtest remains 125 (U.S. norms). Information is one subtest that holds up very well with old age.
According to wikipedia, Seligman was born in 1924, so it would have been 1988 when he took the WAIS-R (four years before his book was published). but ten years after the WAIS-R was normed. However I will not deduct points for obsolete norms because there was absolutely no Flynn effect whatsoever on the WAIS Information subtest from 1978 to 1995.
According to David Wechsler (the founder of the Wechsler scales), Information tests were originally only used by psychiatrists. Psychologists initially shunned them, probably because they were presumed to be measures of education, not intelligence. It was not until the Army Alpha exams of World War I included an information subtest did they become accepted. When the results of the Army Alpha were analyzed, to everyone’s shock, the Information subtest correlated better with the overall score than any other subtest, probably because general knowledge reflects your brain’s innate capacity to absorb and retrieve sensory input over an entire lifetime.
Still, information is only one subtest, and does not give a complete picture of one’s overall cognitive ability to adapt. In part 3, we discuss Seligman’s performance on the Picture Completion subtest.
Pumpkin Person 
PP, do you know, by any chance, a scaled score for 28/29 on the Information subtest ( WAIS III)?
If you’re referring to the American WAIS-III, then I assume you mean 28/28 since there are only 28 items on its Information subtest…unlike the WAIS-R which had 29.
A raw score of 28/28 = scaled score 18 in the peak age group (20-34) but age adjusted scaled scores vary by age.
I appreciate it, PP, Yes I mean the American WAiS III
I got a sample of 4 Russians, who have taken Information, Similarities (translated into Russian. No, the folks weren’t confused by the questions about American history
or something) and Matrix Reasoning from the test I have everything but their scaled scores))) that’ s sad)
You’re giving the WAIS-III to Russians? Where did you get the WAIS-III from?
A kind of long story. First time I saw WAIS -III entirely in an Appendix to some article dedicated to research among young adults of different ethnicity in South Africa . There was almost everything but scoring tables.The link doesn’t exist anymore. The Information subtest was adapted to the local culture.
Then while taking different tests on cerebrals.com I – like any other – was asked to answer another questions to help norming . I recognized the test – it was Inf, Sim and Voc from WAIS-iii, but with – I don’t remember it clearly and I can’t find my notes now – questions about 2 prominent historical US figures, so I decided that iwas the American one. Then I got another test and the site asked me to pass the matrices – now in color, coz in the article they were in black and white , so you could’t use them.
A kind of long story. First time I saw WAIS -III entirely in an Appendix to some article dedicated to research among young adults of different ethnicity in South Africa . There was almost everything but scoring tables.The link doesn’t exist anymore.
That’s not supposed to happen. The items on these tests are not supposed to be leaked out to the public under any circumstances.
Then while taking different tests on cerebrals.com I – like any other – was asked to answer another questions to help norming . I recognized the test – it was Inf, Sim and Voc from WAIS-iii, but with – I don’t remember it clearly and I can’t find my notes now – questions about 2 prominent historical US figures, so I decided that iwas the American one. Then I got another test and the site asked me to pass the matrices – now in color, coz in the article they were in black and white , so you could’t use them.
Un-be-fucken-lievable! I am horrified that someone put items from the WAIS-III on a public message board.
I was surprised . My first idea was – ok, now they have WAIS IV so maybe WAIS iii is kinda overdue, not in use and not protected by law in the West anymore. But then the article vanished – very soon. I don’t know how it works now on cerebrals – It happened about 2 years ago.
Look, I had to answer your question , coz I understood that otherwise you would think that I am – I don’t know – a hacker, , a cheater or something.
I did not mean to make you unhappy , PP, I m just a curious guy surfing here and there, sorry
Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re not the one who posted those tests on public forums.
It’s true that the WAIS-III is now obsolete, but a lot of the items from the WAIS-III live on in the WAIS-IV so both tests can be compromised.
Pumpkin, I have a question. Does the WISC IV extended norms correspond with the WAIS IV? Like, if the ceiling of a wisc arithmetic subtest was 29, and a 26 for the wais, for the 16 year old, would a 29 on the wisc equal a 16 on the wais?
Don’t know. I don’t have access to the extended norms.
Oh, they’re online- https://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/assets/WISC-IV/WISCIV_TechReport_7.pdf
Pumpkin, these questions are all over the place, they are extremely easy to find.
I use open sources)
cerebrals.org , sorry
Part three…already….
LOL, I wrote this in Feb 21, 2015 and it was swatted down by the folks here.
“I would say his iq is in the 120s range. Why? My argument is talkers about a subject do well in that subject but aren’t elite in it. For example pua coaches tend to be better at getting laid than average but they can’t compete with the male movie stars and powerful who get sexy bombshells regularly.
Another example are property developers vs house flippers on tv. Sure the house flippers on tv brag more about money than sheldon adelson but they can’t compete with billionaire real estate moguls.
It’s like comparing a good physics teacher with Albert Einstein.
The real geniuses are out there doing their thing and not really talking. So that means talking about iq means an above average intelligence but rarely elite iq.”
Information is only one subtest though
If he got only two out of 29 wrong, is there maybe already a ceiling effect?
The individual subtests do tend to suffer from ceiling effects, I would think. Although the full-scale IQ on the WAIS-R has a huge ceiling, especially for older adults.
Although one can debate whether the huge ceiling is meaningful, given that it’s based on a composite of subtests with generally low ceilings.
I should clarify…it’s not so much that the information subtest has a low ceiling, but rather it’s unreliable at the high end. If Seligman had scored 29/29 instead of 27/29, his scaled score would have jumped from 15 (IQ 125 on that one subtest) to 18 (IQ 140). So just two questions make a huge difference.
I was thinking the same thing when I was reading your article.
Pumpkin, would reading more books for the sake of increasing your general knowledge because of a want to get a high score on the Information reflect a practice effect? It’s not preparing for the test in anyway.
If you’re doing it specifically for the purpose of scoring high on a test, then yes.
Also, would Verbal IQ scores be lower or higher for bilinguals?
So is reading and making a note to create a list of new words to study and practicing mental math practice effect?
Wouldn’t studying for the GRE also be practice effect? Because that’s what I’m doing – preparing for the GRE and then a week later take MENSA.
I think the scores would be lower. People whose second language is english would probably take a couple of seconds to read and comprehend a n Iq test question if its english. Plus they are used to verbally reason in their first language. Also vocabulary, they might not have the same vocabulary as first language english speakers, even if they are good at speaking english.. Al these could affect their verbal IQ scores.
“Practice effects” are ubiquitous.