<p>The conventional wisdom is that males have a higher standard deviation on normed tests than females, resulting in more at both ends of the spectrum, but a comparable average score.</p>
<p>I’ve seen recent studies that questioned this, and claimed the disparity between the numbers of males and females who score high on math tests disappears in countries where gender roles are less stereotypically defined. I don’t believe there’s any dispute, however, that males at the extreme left of the bell curve greatly outnumber females.</p>