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The Non-Expert: IQ

Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week ANDREW WOMACK answers a reader’s question about how to prove one’s intelligence to a world that needs to know. How? With the Non-Expert’s IQ test, of course.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Womack
TMN Co-Editor in Chief Andrew Womack lives in Austin, Texas. He co-founded The Morning News with Rosecrans Baldwin in 1999 and hasn’t been away from a computer for more than six hours since. You can .
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Question: I have no job, no prospects, and no experience. But! I do have a degree in comparative literature from a notable school and I did really well on my SATs (750 English/720 Math). I know I’m really smart. So how do I prove it? —John

Answer: While there are many everyday ways you can prove your intelligence—reciting every single Canterbury Tale backward, getting your name in the paper, and kayaking, among them—the only surefire way to separate the smartasses from the dumbasses is to determine, through a series of test questions, their Intelligence Quotients (IQs). But the typical IQ test is long, or rather, we imagine it probably is. So instead of having you schedule an appointment at some brain laboratory where you will surely receive lymphatic shock therapy, we have developed a compact, specialized test that will quickly determine your smarts. Or whatever it is that is the opposite of your smarts.

So strap on those nodes and let’s begin!

1. Three ducks, two pigs, eight horses, and two people have a total of how many legs?
15
30
50
All of the above

2. If every adjective means its opposite in the sentence, “John is intelligent, but his trousers are too short,” then which of the following statements is true?
John is an idiot with dirty pant-bottoms
John’s thrifty parents expect him to grow into those trousers
John wears highwaters, lives in Brooklyn, and writes outsider poetry
John wears tight bicycle shorts that show off his massive brains

3. Which of the following words can be spelled from the letters in the word “inconsequence”
in
a
f
iunccnneseqoe

4. If Peter went to Harvard and Marcy went to Texas Tech and Cliff went to Penn State and Jessica went to Stanford, how do they all know each other?
High school
Line at unemployment office
Friendster
They don’t

5. Complete the following melody: “La-dee-DEE, bla-DOO-dah”
DEE-doo! DEE-doo!
PPPPP-RATA-TAT-TAT! RATA-RATA-TAT-TAT!
BAD-a-lee-dee-DOO-dee
Complete silence

6. Imagine turning a handheld calculator upside-down, and using numbers to spell words on the display (where 1=I, 2=z, 3=E, 4=h, 5=s, 6=g, 7=L, 9=b, and 0=o). If you then used the calculator to figure the sum of “boob,” “hell,” and “goose,” what would be the result?
73,439
51,749
-51,749
A night in jail and a $500 fine

7. By rearranging the letters in the sentence, “Old west action is cool,” which of the following phrases can be spelled?
“Clint Eastwood is loco”
“Cool west is action old”
“Looc si noitca tsew dlo”
“Tumbleweeds”

8. In the following sequence of numbers, what should come next?
1, 7, 10, 16, 19
20
23
25
Death

9. If the word ION is written above the word TAO and the word OAK is written above ION, then which of the following is true?
The word ANT is formed vertically
The word PEONY is formed horizontally
O’s take the board, on the diagonal!
The Da Vinci Code is cracked wide open

10. How many letters are there between A and Z?
24
26
3
Few—though they are merely obscure, abbreviated names in a novel, their correspondence is spotty, to say the least



—Published August 6, 2004