Education: Beating the I.Q. Test

From first grade to college, and in industry and the military as well, the intelligence quotient is the chief U.S. measuring rod for separating the bright from the dull. But to a growing body of angry critics. I.Q. tests are unfair. They argue that too many teachers peg children by one I.Q. test. Yet many of the challenges —typically, picture puzzles, number games or scrambled sentences—do not measure native intelligence so much as cultural advantages such as familiarity with vocabulary and material objects. Thus I.Q.s. instead of being fixed for life, can be...

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