Over 60 people have taken the new version of the Pairs and of these, nine reported scores on the cubes test. The mean Pairs score of this sub-group was 7.6 (SD = 1.74) and the mean cubes IQ was 129 (SD = 16); U.S. norms. By equating the mean and SD, I was able to create a rough equivalency between between Pairs raw score and IQ (see chart below).

A random sample of all people who got valid scores on the new version of the Pairs test (excluding those who clearly misunderstood the instructions or quit after less than about a minute) showed their scores to be slightly lower and more variable than the subset who reported cubes scores. By assuming they had the same IQ distribution as all who took the defunct version of the Pairs test, I was able to create an equivalency between both versions which allowed me to equate the old version to IQ too.

The old version has a lower floor and much higher ceiling but this came at the cost of having invalid items (hard to hit the ceiling when certain questions don’t have a valid answer). But even after revising the invalid items, the ceiling remains ridiculously high.

While I’d like to think this test can discriminate above the one in 30 million level, realistically the high ceiling is likely an artifact of low reliability. When test items are flawed, they tend to correlate weakly making it freakishly rare for anyone to hit the ceiling.

Another red flag is the test only correlated 0.24 with self-reported scores on the cubes test though given the small sample size (n = 9) it isn’t quite panic time. On the bright side, the old version of the Pairs correlated perfectly with self-reported PATMA scores (n = 4).

Pairs raw scoreOld version (taken before 6 PM Eastern Time, on April 10, 2024); IQ equivalent (U.S. norms)New version (taken after 6 PM Eastern Time, April 10, 2024); IQ equivalent (U.S. norms)
05059
16168
27377
38487
49696
5107105
6118114
7130123
8141133
9152142
10164151
11175160
12187169
13187+178
14187+188
15187+188+
16187+188+