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Mendel’s studies on heredity have had their impact in mental heredity as well, for instance the oft repeated slogan, ‘Like father, Like son’, in the sense that offspring comes to resemble the parent in certain mannerisms of behaviour – has probably elevated the IQ test to an enviable position. By finding out how intelligent their children are, both the home and school favour the IQ test to suit their own requirements. The home to see how far it can develop the child’s potential in the job market and the school to provide easy accountability to the teacher in his judgement of the student.

In 1912, Stren suggested that one could express the mental age of a child as the age at which the average child achieved equivalent ability. If mental age were used as a ratio to the child’s chronological age, one could arrive at the intelligence quotient. Yet, Stern didn’t claim that the test measured only inborn capacity. It was Goddard who took the test in 1910 to America to emphasize the importance, not so much to measure intelligence, but to predict how will a child shape in school in keeping with his capacity.

In fact Thorndike warned, ‘The label IQ has been tacked onto these tests by popular usage and now we cannot get rid of it.’ A point emphasized by this anecdote. On his way home from the Nobel ceremonies, the late prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stopped in New York and looked at his school records. ‘My marks were not as good as I remember’ he said, ‘And my IQ was 124, considered just above average.’ ‘He was delighted,’ reported his wife Gweneth, ‘He said to win a Nobel prize was of little significance. But to win it with an IQ of 124 – that was something.’

Excerpted from pages 72-73 of ‘Examinations: An Informative Update’ by M Mascarenhas.