Mensational

Now that some time has passed, it's not clear to me how I got into this mess.

My wife remembers it differently than I do. I thought she brought it up, she thinks I did. In any case, I was curious about what the test getting into Mensa entailed. I looked into it and got an email from the local chapter.

There are two parts to the test, the Wonderlic Personality test, which is used by recruiters and others screening job seekers. The NFL uses it extensively, apparently. They give you 12 minutes to answer 50 questions. Do the math (which I can't help but do) and you see that you have just over 14 seconds per question. It's a speed test, basically. The other half of the test is something that Mensa cooked up itself that is similar to the Standford Binet test that most people have heard about.

The top 2% are eligible for Mensa.

I put off doing anything for a long time. I thought that nothing good could come of this. If you fail, you feel like a failure, if you succeed, what if you get a big head and become arrogant? It seems like it would be better not to know. But I got very curious and the thought of taking the test would not go away.

I signed up and showed up for testing, paid my $40 and sat in the room at the local Junior College. There were two other people taking the test. It had occurred to me that if only 2% of the people taking the test are eligible, then my chances were 1 in 50 - not too good.

The people running the test were friendly and not as intimidating as I expected. They asked if we had any questions, and I asked mine about the 2%. They said that it's not 2% of the people taking the test, it's 2% of the general public. They said that 2 out of 3 people that take the test pass it. The comment was that you don't go take the test unless you already have a pretty good idea that you are qualified.

I took the test. The Wonderlic part was grueling. I only got about 35 or 40 questions done, and at one point, aware of the time on the clock, I kind of started to despair. It was a brief feeling, and passed quickly, but when they called time and I saw how much I did not finish, I figured that was it.

The rest of the test was interesting. He started by reading a story with no explanation as to why or what, then went into the test that was not related to the story. It ended up that the questions about the story came after the rest of the test. I had just heard something about this on a podcast, the test being how well you hold something in your mind after there is a stream of interrupting information that comes afterwards. Fortunately, I had just been reading about the subject of the story, so it was already fresh in my mind. Every time they threw a name into the story, I would flash a visual picture of it, sort of as a memory marker. I knew what was coming, so I almost feel like I was cheating. I knew all the questions an hour later when that part of the test came around.

The rest of the test consisted of a lot of comparison contrasts where you have a series of pictures and you have to pick the one that's best or doesn't fit with the others. The pictures were like illustrations taken from 1950's advertisements. Sometimes, you'd look at them and go "what the hell?" Other times it wasn't that hard.

After the test, they talked about what it was like to be in Mensa and go to the meetings. I wondered how political the people would be. Would they tend to think similarly, because they were too smart to be fooled by the spin? Politics comes and goes: are smart people just as divisive as the rest? I wasn't sure I wanted to know. They said they preferred to discuss books and movies and restaurants. That seems pretty smart to me.

It was a fun experience, taking the test, and I'm glad I did.

Did I pass? I told myself before I ever went that if I failed I would be too embarrassed to admit it, and if I passed I didn't want to brag. So I can't tell you. Sorry.