IQ results... Can anyone explain this to me?

LoremIpsum
Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:46:41 +0000

It is possible to get every question correct in a subsection and not get a 19. On the Performance subtests, speed is often an important part of the score, so a child who works slowly and accurately may get a score that’s lower than what might expect.



As I recall (my older son took the test 15 years ago), speed becomes a HUGE portion of the score, especially in sections where everyone eventually gets the answer right (putting the picture blocks in the right sequence to tell a story, for example). The time it takes to respond is measured with a stopwatch and different time ranges (1-5 seconds, 6-15 seconds, etc.) yield different scores. So the self-confident kid who whips out his answer will always beat the deliberate kid who double-checks every step before committing to his answer.

For very young kids, where manual dexterity can be an issue, there is a variation on the way one grades the test called the “Kaufman substitution.” (Kaufman is also well-known as the designer of other IQ tests)