Is it plausible to get the highest grade all the time when your IQ is

[waht315]

Is it plausible to get the highest grade all the time when your IQ is the highest in your class when you try your hardest?

One answer that I got for this question is "My experience in high school is that if you really have the highest IQ in the class, you’ll get the highest grades without trying." However, I don't think that this is true, because you will have to try to get the highest grades, otherwise, there is the possibility that you can get the lowest. IQ /= knowledge

One kid I knew from high school was the best in my AP Chemistry class and he claimed to have never studied and got a 5 on the exam, but he wasn't even in the top 10 in my class while I was. Not even National Merit Commended. He ended up at a mediocre university (not even ranked on usnews) and most likely dropped out to own a car customization company which I don't think is making a ton of money.

I just need more answers for this question. I'm going through a dang ton of depression, because I didn't get the highest score on a homework for my graph theory course at my university. This has been going on for a long time, and I always thought of myself as being very high IQ. I'm so disappointed. It may be because I start the homework relatively late due to depression.

 

[jedishrfu]

Unpacking a couple of things here. IQ doesn't equate with grades. If you don't look at the material, you can't always know enough about it to get the highest grades. There are some courses in high school that are graded subjectively and if you aren't in the good graces of the teacher or your ideas are a bit outside the box, it's likely you will get lower grades. Kids with high IQs sometimes become arrogant or obnoxious (especially when they break curves or are a little open about their marks) to the point where the teacher and other students will ostracize them, causing them to lose confidence and not get the highest marks.

When I was in high school, we had some remarkable students that I was in awe of. One student, in particular, was always getting the highest grades in every subject. He seldom spoke to anyone, and if you struck up a conversation with him, he'd say something and then switch interest and abruptly walk away. His grades were consistently at the 99-100 grade level.

Both he and his older brother were champion athletes in Football, basketball, track, and the senior band program. The difference was his brother was very outgoing and friendly and would get grades in the 97-100% range, whereas he would get grades in the 99-100% range—a small but significant difference.

He was so good that he would correct the Latin teacher for mistakes made during class. He ingeniously did this by quietly asking questions after class, leading the teacher to the error. He eventually became a Ph.D. Biologist, I believe which makes sense given the widespread use of Latin in naming critters and plants.

Latin for me was a great class but I struggled to do the translations and could never remember all the declensions, conjugations, and exceptions to every rule. It's a wonder the Romans accomplished so much with a language whose semantics matched Yoda-speak. ( ala The bat, the ball hit. "hmm much difficulty, have you...") and needed a law degree to speak correctly.

http://www.yodaspeak.co.uk/index.php

https://funtranslations.com/yoda

The next thing to unpack is the difficulty you’re experiencing. Everyone has this as we progress on the educational ladder. The higher you go, the more challenging it gets, and your peers are struggling too but may not show it. Your grades will drop, and profs will use curves more, so you can’t use the grade to gauge how well you’re doing. I think this is caused by the difficulty of the subject matter, making practical tests, and the difficulty of studying at a faster and faster pace. Three years of high school is like one year of undergrad college. Three years of undergrad studies are like one year of graduate studies….

In the scheme of things though, employers care little about your grades. They usually focus on the university or college you attended, your major, some specific courses relative to the job, that you did okay grade-wise and we'll figure out the rest when you come for an interview.

So don't fret about the small stuff, keep your eye on the goal and do the best you can with no regrets, and no distractions. Learn to learn that's all you can do and be happy.

I hope this helps…

 

[HAYAO]

May I just express my concern from a psychological perspective?

I believe that your feeling of inadequacy comes from you being conditioned to base your self-worth on things like "making money", "getting high grades", "having high IQ", "having high conscientiousness", etc. While I agree that these are the criteria that society see in you as a labor force in the future, and perhaps rightly so, it doesn't mean it defines your worth as human being.

The reason why you are getting depressed over not getting the highest grade is because you've set a standard so high on yourself that you have to torture yourself to achieve that standard. The core unconscious psychology in these cases is that these kind of people were conditioned to believe that they are "inadequate human beings until they have achieved a certain level of status". Which means that not only do they see inadequacy of other people (like you did about the kid in high school), they also see themselves as "inadequate human being" for lack of better words. That type of self-worth, or lack thereof, is exactly what causes people to want praise from other people or compare themselves to other people so that they can temporarily fill that lack of self-worth. Unfortunately, it's not a maintainable way to think about yourself for mental health.

I want you to free yourself from this kind of thought processes. You, or anyone else for that matter, are already complete human beings regardless of their IQ or personality. Your feeling of inadequacy is not coming from not getting the best grades, or not having enough IQ, or not making enough effort. It's coming from your lack of self-worth. If you can't accept the tools you have and don't have, then you need to work on that first. I highly suggest you consult a trained therapist with the right license.

It's important that you find happiness with the tools you have, instead of trying to find happiness with the tools you don't have. I learned that the hard way.

 

[nuuskur]

Yes, it is. Depends on how much effort you are willing to put into it. Putting stock in some esoteric concepts such as "IQ" and assuming "a high IQ" is equivalent to "little effort high grades" is silly.

It should not be a priority to be able to get high grades for little (or no) effort. It almost sounds like you are saying "I am intelligent, I should get high grades". To hell with that! You want high grades, you work for it! No ifs or buts.

One kid I knew from high school was the best in my AP Chemistry class and he claimed to have never studied and got a 5 on the exam, but he wasn't even in the top 10 in my class while I was.

Answers the question in the title in the affirmative, assuming this kid wasn't as "smart" as you perceived him to be.

Not even National Merit Commended. He ended up at a mediocre university

This elitist schmuck attitude does you no favors.

(not even ranked on usnews) and most likely dropped out to own a car customization company which I don't think is making a ton of money.

More elitism. Knock it off! Maybe he wants to deal with cars, who are you to judge him for it?!

I'm so disappointed. It may be because I start the homework relatively late due to depression.

You reap what you sow, buddy. You want to do better, then work for it. You don't need to compete with others. Do better relative to how you've been doing in the past.

Perhaps, you are not as smart as you think you are? Ever considered that as an option?

 

[waht315]

Yes, it is. Depends on how much effort you are willing to put into it. Putting stock in some esoteric concepts such as "IQ" and assuming "a high IQ" is equivalent to "little effort high grades" is silly.

It should not be a priority to be able to get high grades for little (or no) effort. It almost sounds like you are saying "I am intelligent, I should get high grades". To hell with that! You want high grades, you work for it! No ifs or buts.Answers the question in the title in the affirmative, assuming this kid wasn't as "smart" as you perceived him to be.

This elitist schmuck attitude does you no favors.

More elitism. Knock it off! Maybe he wants to deal with cars, who are you to judge him for it?!You reap what you sow, buddy. You want to do better, then work for it. You don't need to compete with others. Do better relative to how you've been doing in the past.

Perhaps, you are not as smart as you think you are? Ever considered that as an option?

No, I refuse to believe that last sentence.

 

[waht315]

I have serious doubts about my intelligence which is the reason why I asked this question. It should have been obvious.

 

[HAYAO]

I have serious doubts about my intelligence which is the reason why I asked this question. It should have been obvious.

Hmm, okay. May I ask what you're going to do if you find out that you have low/average/high IQ? You don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable. I'm just curious.

 

[waht315]

Hmm, okay. May I ask what you're going to do if you find out that you have low/average/high IQ? You don't have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable. I'm just curious.

I've already gotten into a couple of high IQ societies a few years ago if that means anything. I also took a bunch of online IQ tests and scored 150+ on most of them. I was very depressed back then, so I could have scored higher if I wasn't depressed. I didn't want to pay $400 for a proctored IQ test like the WAIS. I'm still pretty lost as I'm not doing as well in my courses as I would like.

 

[nuuskur]

I would like to know why being intelligent is so important. Do you have some fantasy about how intelligence (or lack of) magically keeps you from doing whatever it is you want to do?

Very likely, you have been wasting time on those tests. You don't need some dubious test to (in)validate you.

 

[jedishrfu]

Maybe you should watch the BBC Beautiful Young Minds documentary. These kids selected for the IMO express similar hubris, sentiments and worries.

 

[waht315]

I would like to know why being intelligent is so important. Do you have some fantasy about how intelligence (or lack of) magically keeps you from doing whatever it is you want to do?

I watched movies like Good Will Hunting and Gifted, and I never saw myself like the gifted protagonists and it infuriates me. People like them have it so easy.

 

[waht315]

I would like to know why being intelligent is so important. Do you have some fantasy about how intelligence (or lack of) magically keeps you from doing whatever it is you want to do?

Very likely, you have been wasting time on those tests. You don't need some dubious test to (in)validate you.

I was wasting time on those tests in 2020. Now, I've stopped doing them completely. I simply didn't like the online IQ community since the people there worship International Math Olympiad kids. They're very unaccomplished.

 

[jedishrfu]

The BBC documentary I posted talks about Asperger’s and how many of these young bright mathematicians have the condition.

One student in particular, inspired the movie X+Y or Beautiful Young Mind staring Asa Butterfield and it shows inn more detail the struggles Asperger’s kids have to fit in and be normal when they have this magic mental power.

 

[PeterDonis]

One answer that I got for this question is "My experience in high school is that if you really have the highest IQ in the class, you’ll get the highest grades without trying." However, I don't think that this is true

I know it's not true, because I was a counterexample in some of my classes.

One thing to keep in mind about any school is that it's an artificial environment. You're forced to learn things not because you're interested in them, or because you have to learn them to solve some real-world problem, but simply because somebody decided that every kid should have to learn these things. Many people find it difficult to maintain interest under those conditions; I certainly did. It doesn't mean you've done anything wrong.

 

[nuuskur]

I watched movies like Good Will Hunting and Gifted, and I never saw myself like the gifted protagonists and it infuriates me. People like them have it so easy.

If you'll allow me to be cheeky. I never saw myself as agent Ethan Hunt going on impossible missions, either and it's eating away at me every day! He has it so easy!

Seriously, though. Are you slowly coming round to claiming that life isn't fair?

 

[waht315]

If you'll allow me to be cheeky. I never saw myself as agent Ethan Hunt going on impossible missions, either and it's eating away at me every day! He has it so easy!

Seriously, though. Are you slowly coming round to claiming that life isn't fair?

I've known this for a long time now. I didn't go to a fancy private school like most of these IMO kids nor do I have physics professors as parents.

 

[HAYAO]

I've already gotten into a couple of high IQ societies a few years ago if that means anything. I also took a bunch of online IQ tests and scored 150+ on most of them. I was very depressed back then, so I could have scored higher if I wasn't depressed. I didn't want to pay $400 for a proctored IQ test like the WAIS. I'm still pretty lost as I'm not doing as well in my courses as I would like.

IQ differences over 130 is unreliable since you can't make IQ test infinitely difficult. You getting over 150 at least ensures that you definitely have high intelligence, though.

To look at this from a psychology perspective, IQ is the biggest factor* when it comes to academic performance, but it certainly isn't all. Personality traits like openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion correlates positively with grades in school. Openness because it means you are open to new experiences, which scientists typically score high on. Conscientiousness because it means you are capable of controlling concentration. Agreeableness because it allows you to be more obedient to teachers. Extraversion because it makes you more assertive and social, which also puts good impression on teachers.

What I recognized in your post is that you seem to think that "you can do better if you weren't depressed", which might be true, but what is important here is you already have the answer: you want to deal with your depression. People with high neuroticism tend to be depressed, and people with high intelligence usually boost that. But not all high neurotic people become depressed, which means that there is a possibility that you can deal with your depression to certain extent. I'm assuming that you have a psychiatrist that you can talk to, but if not, I suggest you find one. But medication is not necessarily the only solution. There are some psycho-therapy to help you deal with it as well. This doesn't necessarily mean your depression will be clean gone, but it does mean that there are ways you can live without letting it dominate your life.

*Just a side note here that when I say "biggest factor", it means it explains the biggest variation in the statistics. It's actually hard to discretely say the degree of factor because it depends on how you define it. For example, IQ explains the biggest variation in career success in a population by a factor of 0.4 (16%), but it doesn't necessarily mean IQ makes up 16% of career success for individuals. In the case of child abuse victims, their career success might correlate lower with IQ and instead better explained by their mental state (depression/personality disorders/etc).

 

[nuuskur]

I have serious doubts about my intelligence which is the reason why I asked this question. It should have been obvious.

It is obvious that you think yourself better than many others. You come off as extremely judgmental and sour. Speaking ill of many people, including that guy back in high school who aced the test even though he "wasn't even top10" and now "doesn't even make good money at some car repair shop". Then trying put down the students that take part in IMO and claim them to be "unaccomplished" - what's it to you? Then there's some silly hyperbole like "not having gone to a fancy private school" or "not having physicists as parents"? Are you making excuses?!

That your common sense is questionable is obvious.

It is not obvious at all that you claim to have doubts about your own intelligence.

 

[Klystron]

Many of us use humor and self-deprecation to muddle through life among 'normies' as my siblings joke. I have taken many proctored, to use your expression, IQ tests over my life with interesting results depending on psychological vogues among the test designers, though never paid in money.

Shortly after my sixth birthday I took an individual test at a professor's home in Palo Alto CA near Stanford Uni. The various sections took hours but I could be very fast at that age and had taken a long nap. Back then the experimental reading machines ran printed paper scrolls past a glass screen. My fastest reading speed consistently broke the mechanism.

Afterward, a group of professors were standing in the living room compiling test results. "You are placing too much weight on his age.", the lead test designer admonished. "Yes.", I interjected and went on to discuss weighted averages and difficulties inherent evaluating outliers, once I saw the graphs. The more I argued, the less inclined the skeptics were to adjust my test scores.

Regrettably, I walked away with an IQ score of 210, despite my attempts to reduce the weighting. My charismatic catholic mother saw Satan's influence; my father felt extreme jealousy mixed with pride. I barely survived this combination. Yoga and exercise helped and an understanding sibling.

Four years later I took graduate level IQ tests from a prof at Santa Clara U., husband of my grade school teacher. In the pre-dawn hours Fischer stopped to pick up 1) a box of doughnuts carried by 2) a gorgeous blonde coed dressed in an ultra-fashionable micro-miniskirt. My 10 year old self was torn between the luscious donuts and equally delightful 16 year old 'daughter' balancing on my lap in the professors midlife sportscar. I always liked older women.

I was left bereft of both donuts and 'daughter' but earned the undying animus of the prof. He was so angry at our harmless flirting -- I asked her to go bike riding -- he miss scored my tests.

The language section involved 'shift runes' where the speaker shifted vowel code substitutions at each level after expressing a thought. I mastered the code during a bathroom break but quickly surpassed the teacher's ability to keep up and respond. I was coding at level 7 while the poor fool, I mean august professor, was bumbling pronunciation at level 2.

Eventually, he threw out the entire language sections as 'outliers' dropping my 186 down to a more desirable 131. Nothing changed at school as I was not allowed to attend uni classes even taught by Jesuits. I read my textbooks the first week and coasted through grade school except for math. They were starting algebra while I used modified sets and functions to replace tensors studying physics.

 

[jedishrfu]

Lets not psychoanalyze each other here as we aren't licensed psychologists, psychiatrists or licensed anything and if we are we are bound by career ethical standards to not analyze someone on a public like pundits on a news show.

The OP has an issue and a doubt about his intelligence based on it no longer working to his advantage. This could be the result of things getting harder as you move up the educational ladder, or it could be some form of depression setting in as is common among competitive college students worried over their studies and how well they are doing relative to peers.

In any event, we have said most everything we can say here and hope the OP can find some solace or way forward to get past his doubts. Counseling may help and I'd encourage the OP to consider doing that to get to the bottom of the issues before it becomes more serious.

And now its time to close this thread and thank everyone for participating here.

Thank you all,
Jedi