Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

“ This is, perhaps, the most significant fact to be derived from our data: that the children who test at and above 180 IQ constitute the "top" among college graduates. They are the students of whom one may confidently predict that they will win honors and prizes for intellectual work.
Furthermore, it is shown that at approximately 190 IQ (S-B) individuals "go through the ceiling" of available tests for adult intelligence by the time they are 21 years old. We cannot at present distribute these persons at maturity. ”

“ Success in alternative tests may not be substituted for failure in one of the regular tests. Ordinarily the alternatives should be omitted. They have been included in the scale chiefly as a convenience in case materials are lacking for any of the regular tests, or in case any of the latter should be deemed for some special reason unsuitable. The ball and field test, for example, is often rendered unsuitable by coaching, and one of the alternates should always be substituted for the vocabulary test in the case of subjects whose mother tongue is other than English. ”

“ One noticeable indication of his intelligence is his ability to criticize his own concepts; unless he understands every detail of a subject, he does not consider that he understands it.
His ability in academic work seems well distributed, though strongest in mathematics. For this grade he is markedly low in art and industrial work; but he would be average in second grade, where his age would under ordinary circumstances place him. His artistic feeling is all for music and literature. ”

“ In the first place, we have proved that children who rate in the top one per cent of the juvenile population in respect to "judgment," as Binet called it, also possess much more often than others those additional qualities which thinkers have most frequently named as desirable in leaders. There is a strong probability that a child who rates as only one in a hundred for intelligence will also be endowed in superior degree with "integrity, independence, originality, creative imagination, vitality, forcefulness, warmth, poise, and stability." ”

“ On the other hand, the Stanford revision causes young subjects to test lower than any other version of the Binet scale. At 5 or 6 years the mental ages secured by the Stanford revision average from 6 to 10 months lower than other revisions yield.
The above differences are more significant than would at first appear. An error of 10 months in the mental age of a 5-year-old is as serious as an error of 20 months in the case of a 10-year-old. Stating the error in terms of the intelligence quotient makes it more evident. ”

“ As a rule enough of each response should be recorded to enable one to score it at any time later. The great advantage of the Record Booklet is that it permits this. Only the most expert examiner should limit his record to pluses and minuses.
5. The examination should be thorough. It should include at least one year in which there is no failure and at least one year in which there is no success. When lack of time necessitates an abbreviation of the examination, this should be done by using only the starred tests rather than by shortening the range of the examination. ”

“ All three comprehension questions of this year were used by Binet, Goddard, Huey, and others in year X; two of them in the “easy series” and one in the “hard series.” The Stanford data show that they belong at the 8-year level on the standard of scoring above set forth. The three differ little among themselves in difficulty, but all of them are decidedly easier than the other five used by Binet. ”

“ A score of 441 points on the IER Scale corresponds to a score of about 116 points on the more widely known Thorndike Tests for College Freshmen. The top one per cent of college graduates make a score of 108 or better on the latter test. E, therefore, surely rates at least in the top one quarter of one per cent of college graduates. [ [E, it will be noted, was at this time at the average age of college freshmen.] ]
At the age of 8 years E rated plus 11 PE in general intelligence (by Stanford-Binet) as compared with the generality of 8-year-olds. ”

“ That the dull and border-line adults are so much more readily distinguished from the feeble-minded by the Stanford revision than by other Binet series is due as much to the addition of tests in the upper groups as to the relocation of existing tests. ”

“ For the first fifty or hundred examinations the tests should be given directly from this guide. Little by little, as the procedure becomes memorized, the examiner should attempt to free himself of the necessity of reading the formulas, but for a long time it is necessary to check up one's procedure by frequent reference to the Guide if practice in error is to be avoided.
3. The examiner should early learn to withstand the temptation of wholesale coaxing and cross-questioning. To do so often robs the response of significance and is likely to interfere with the establishment of rapport. ”

“ Tests, such as we are now making, are of value both for the advancement of science and for the information of the person who is tested. It is important for science to learn how people differ and on what factors these differences depend. If we can separate the influence of heredity from the influence of environment, we may be able to apply our knowledge so as to guide human development. ”

“ To avoid the danger of large error it is absolutely essential that the adding of credits to secure mental age and the dividing of mental age by chronological age to secure the intelligence quotient be performed twice. ”

“ Perhaps this can never be determined, as the word "genius" may eventually be found to have no meaning that can be agreed upon. All we know about the status of the subjects of the present study is that they test above 180 IQ (S-B) and are thus more than +10 PE removed from mediocrity in general intelligence. [1] It may be possible to arrive at some comparison between their characteristics and performances on the one hand, and the concepts of genius that have been offered on the other.
CONCEPTS OF THE ANCIENTS The concept of the genius is very ancient. ”

“ Correlation between general intelligence, as measured by a scale like Stanford-Binet, and reading ability, as measured by a scale like Trabue’s Language Completion, or Thorndike-McCall’s scale for understanding of sentences, reaches as high as .90, and hardly ever in any group falls below .60.
These correlations indicate that general mental maturity is very closely related to learning to read. The very intelligent children are the best readers in by far the majority of cases, while school children who do not learn to read under ordinary instruction, are usually feeble-minded. ”

“ Thanks to the novelty and inherent interest of the tests, this is usually not difficult to do. But there are degrees of rapport, and the examiner should not be satisfied with his efforts until the subject becomes wholly absorbed in the tasks set him by the tests. The importance of tactful encouragement and a kindly, genial manner cannot be too strongly emphasized, nor, on the other hand, the risk incurred in allowing a parent to witness the test. Hardly anything is more likely to spoil an examination than the presence of a critical or over-sympathetic parent. ”

“ They are, however, very much better than the average parent or relative would be able to prepare for him or herself. The mental age score which will result from the use of these tests is not as reliable as will result from the use of the Stanford Revision of the Binet tests with older children, but its reliability is sufficient to point out cases of retardation in intelligence or of distinct brilliance of mind. ”

“ In connection with the Stanford Version of the Binet Scale, Dr. Lewis M. Terman says: “Whenever intelligence tests have been made in any considerable number in the schools, they have shown that not far from 2% of the children enrolled have a grade of intelligence which, however long they live, will never develop beyond the level which is normal to the average child of 11 or 12 years.... ”

“ This test found a place in year VI of Binet’s 1908 scale, but was shifted to year VII in the 1911 revision. The Stanford statistics, and all other available data, with the exception of Bobertag’s, justify its retention in year VI. It is possible that the children of different nations do not have equal opportunity and stimulus for learning the distinction between right and left, but the data show that as far as American and English children are concerned we have a right to expect this knowledge in children of 6 years. ”

“ It has in fact been found wherever comparisons have been made that children of superior social status yield a higher average mental age than children of the laboring classes. The results of Decroly and Degand and of Meumann, Stern, and Binet himself may be referred to in this connection. In the case of the Stanford investigation, also, it was found that when the unselected school children were grouped in three classes according to social status (superior, average, and inferior) , the average I Q for the superior social group was 107, and that of the inferior social group 93. ”

“ As the white man rode by, the Indian said: "The white man is lazy; he walks sitting down." What was the white man riding on that caused the Indian to say, "He walks sitting down?"
Credit if two of the three problems are satisfactorily answered. Spontaneous corrections allowed. (See The Measurement of Intelligence, pp. 316-18, for important scoring directions.)
5. Arithmetical Reasoning
Show S. the problems one at a time. Have S. read each problem aloud and, with the printed problem still before him, find the answer without the use of pencil or paper. ”

“ Methods have thus been made available for making quantitative statements of the status of these individuals both during development and at maturity.
THE RANGE OF INTELLECT ABOVE 180 IQ It is pertinent to inquire what are the limits of variation in terms of standard use in respect to human intelligence. How far superior to the average person are the most highly intelligent individuals currently produced? ”

“ You two are better able to carry the poor little donkey than he is to carry you." "Very well," said the miller, "we will try." So both of them jumped to the ground, got some ropes, tied the donkey's legs to a pole and tried to carry him. But as they crossed the bridge the donkey became frightened, kicked loose, and fell into the stream.
Credit in Year XII if score is 4 points or more; in Year XVI if score is 8 points or more. Allow 2 points for each fable for correct, and 1 for partially correct response. (Note carefully scoring directions in The Measurement of Intelligence, pp. 290-97.) ”

“ Culture. . . .
"The results for the CAVD as interpreted through norms obtained on selected populations show that highly intelligent children (of IQ 140 or above) fall within the upper quartile of the college graduate population of the United States, when they are at or near maturity."
Such results are confirmed also by a study reported two years earlier, in which over 100 children had been re-measured with Army Alpha 10 to 12 years after their initial Stanford-Binet measurements at ages 7 to 9 years. [2] All these children had IQ's over 130, and half of them were over 150, ranging up to 190. ”

“ The most intelligent tenth of the pupils were already "through the ceiling" of Stanford Achievement and of other standard achievement tests in June, 1937.
At this point, it should be mentioned that our pupils do not have and never have had homework assigned to them.
The intellectual interest and capacity of young children who test from 160 to 200 IQ is incredible to those who have had no experience with the teaching of such children. We have in our classes about a dozen of such extreme deviates. They are truly original thinkers and doers of their generation. ”

“ Binet fully appreciated the fact that intelligence is not homogeneous, that it has many aspects, and that no one kind of test will display it adequately. He therefore assembled for his intelligence scale tests of many different types, some of them designed to display differences of memory, others differences in power to reason, ability to compare, power of comprehension, time orientation, facility in the use of number concepts, power to combine ideas into a meaningful whole, the maturity of apperception, wealth of ideas, knowledge of common objects, etc. ”

“ A considerable number falling above 180 IQ have been reported, many of them not fully measured by Stanford-Binet because of the limitations of the test. It is therefore clear that children in the upper 1 per cent are not all alike. On the contrary, the child at the top of this group exceeds the child who barely reaches the group by much more than the latter exceeds the average child. The most able child in the upper 1 per cent surpasses the least able in this group by as much as the average child surpasses a moron (in terms of IQ) . ”

“ They are the ones who can not only conserve thought in its abstract reaches, but who can originate new thoughts, new inventions, new patterns, and who can solve problems.
When, about twenty years ago, Terman [8] began to attempt classifications of high deviates, on the basis of IQ, he called 140 IQ (S-B) "genius or near genius." The intervening years have proved that this idea must be revised. Seniors in many of our first-rate colleges test at a median of 140 IQ (S-B) or even higher, and about a quarter of all college graduates test at or above this level. ”