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A score of 100 is still the norm in today's tests, although none of them use Binet's quotient formula. Instead, since scores were found to distribute themselves along a bell curve—centered at 100—individual IQs are now measured in standard deviations along such a curve. In the tests, about 68% score between 85 and 115; less than 3% score below 70—or above 130. Because scores fluctuate widely in the high IQ range, researchers have scrapped the designation genius (once defined as 140 level or above). Now they prefer more subtle terms like superior and very superior. Because terminology differs from one test to another, anyone with a 120 score on the Wechsler test is designated superior, while the same score rates only above average on the Otis-Lennon.
The more tests that are devised, the more educators seem to doubt their validity. For one thing, individual IQ scores are known to vary considerably. The IQs of children, for example, can change 17 points to 20 points up or down before the age of 18, and there is sometimes a marked change from one year to the next. Many experts even question how much IQ scores have to do with intelligence. Few support Harvard Psychologist Richard Herrnstein's position that intelligence is primarily an innate ability, rather than an evolving capacity resulting from the interplay of mental quickness and environmental conditioning. It is also possible that such personal traits as drive and persistence—factors that IQ tests cannot measure—are as important as inherent reasoning ability. Furthermore, most psychologists agree that the tests are biased in favor of middle-class children (blacks as a group score 15 points lower than whites). And there is a persistent danger that an IQ may become a labeling device. One Florida teacher gave his students more challenging assignments after noticing numbers ranging from 130 to 160 after their names; only later did he discover that they were locker numbers.
In consequence, straight IQ tests are being gradually abandoned in favor of tests that claim merely to measure academic ability. McGraw-Hill, for example, is quietly retiring its old standby, the California Test of Mental Maturity, to avoid "identifying a child with a fixed number." Instead, the firm is promoting a new Short Form Test of Academic Aptitude. It reports verbal and nonverbal scores separately, rather than one intelligence quotient—although a mental-age score is still available upon request.
The only point on which educators generally agree is that IQ tests do seem to be fairly reliable forecasters of future academic success. As for Reggie Jackson and other proud bearers of high IQs, they can still seek gratification in several exclusive societies. The international Mensa society accepts only applicants who can prove they scored in the top 2% on any standard IQ test (among its 32,000 fellows: Isaac Asimov and F. Lee Bailey). The International Society for Philosophical Enquiry is even more select: its members, who now number more than 100, must rank in the 99.9 percentile.