(08-01-2020, 08:47 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: I didn't claim to have 165. That was Trivial Pursuit, if I recall. I don't think I'm that high. I only know I have a decent IQ, because I was invited to join Mensa after taking an IQ test my freshman year of HS, so I'm at least over 135. If I had to guess, based on what I've learned, I'd say I'm between 145-155.

Funny story; my mom complained to the school that I should be in gifted in talented, but I didn't want to, so I half-heartedly took the GT examination (not an IQ test). I didn't do well, and when my mom asked me why not, I told her the truth. She went up to the school and complained again and asked for me to retake it. The counselor said that I couldn't retake it, but I could take an official IQ test, and if I scored high enough, I could get in GT. My mom told me I'd be grounded if I didn't try my best, and I ended up doing pretty well. The school was forced to put me in the AP and GT program. Luckily for me, I would have had to retake my senior year of classes if not for the AP bump in my GPA. I had a 1.7 that was rounded to a 2.0. I was a terrible student, but I ended up becoming a Gifted and Talented teacher for a while in a weird twist of fate. I learned all about IQ back then, and one of the big lessons is that it's pretty common for people in the higher percentiles to rebel against systems. That's pretty much the story of my  life until my mid-30's, when I got tired of trying to change the system.

To answer your question. I don't do anything special with my brain. I raise my kids, I learn stuff like philosophy, psychology, history, cultures, and modern affairs (with a strong dose of whatever new hobby piques my interest... right now that's fishing), and I post on the internet. It's a waste, really, and people constantly like to remind me.

Interesting.  In Jacksonville they gave us an aptitude test every year and mine always reported back 99th percentile.  By the charts I've seen, that puts me somewhere north of 135, but probably not that far north.  I was 95th percentile on the GRE, but the baseline there is other GRE test takers, not the overall population.
I'm not convinced it means much, anyhow. When I took the SAT at age 18, math was my weaker subject. But when I took the GRE at age 22, I had four years of engineering school under my belt and I aced the math portion. My verbal portion actually declined. So I don't think we're really tracking a permanent feature of someone's personality here.
I was sort of a problem child in school. From about first grade to 7th grade, I pretty consistently and deliberately challenged the teacher's authority.  By eighth grade, for some reason, I mellowed out and only spoke to the teacher when spoken to, and things got a lot better.
I always liked to take tests and write essays, but I did not like to do homework, so I didn't. So like you, I also underperformed compared to my supposed potential.
I've got two kids and we're seeing dad's traits in them, good and bad.  
We've told both of them, "you know your dad was like that" when they're being bad.  About a year ago, my dad heard this and he just volunteered, "yeah, I was a handful too, your grandmother was exasperated with me." I was shocked.  "18 years in your house, with you telling me all I'm doing wrong, and you're telling me this NOW?"

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