‘Academic English for Tertiary Studs: EAP S Question: 1. Why is it difficult to identify the age at which intelligence (as measured by 1.Q, tests) reaches a peak? 1.Q and age 2. What does graph 1 show? 3. What does graph 2 show? 4, What ‘problems’ are associated with these graphs? Page 2 (© UNSCallege Pry LedAcademic English for Tertiary Studies: EAP S Cloze: 1.9 and age Because in recent years the average scores on I.Q, tests have been rising, itis dificult Graph 1 shows that when an 1.Q. test is administered across a large population of mixed ages (from 16 to 60), In fact, the total scores, as well as the scores on the verbal and performance parts of the test, However, graph 2 shows that when the same people were tested at various ages, While verbal ability increased between the ages of 19 and 50, Moreover, the total scores showed this same pattern, ‘Although these results tested only they do provide some encouragement for people in general. While we may be growing older, we may also be growing wiser! sone (© Uwscollege ty Led‘Academic English for Tertiary Studies: EAP S WEEK 9 WED FILE 5. READING: IQ & AGE {As has been said, the ability to pass increasingly difficult Items on intelligence tests grows rapidly during the years from birth to about the mid-teens - and particularly in the earliest years of childhood. This fact leads to some interesting questions: at what age does the kind of ability measured by intelligence tests reach Its peak? Once the peak Is attained, does the ability then decline during the middle and old age? ‘The answers to these questions are not easy to obtain, because they are ‘complicated by the probability, which has just been mentioned, that the average score on intelligence tests has been rising generation by generation in recent years. If one were to administer the same kind of intelligence test to large ‘numbers of people from teenagers to sixty-year-olds, one would aturally expect the younger people to make higher average scores than the older people ~ and this is indeed what has been found to happen. For example, in standardizing @ recent version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the test wes administered to representative samples of various age groups from sixteen through sixty-four and the results were as illustrated in Graph 1. ‘Note that the average total score rose through the early twenties, remained more or less on a plateau until thirty-four, then began a fairly sharp and steady decline. However, the age-by-age patterns differed for the two parts of the test, the verbal Items and the performance items. Ability at verbal skills, after reaching its peak between twenty-five and thirty-four, remained fairly constant through the age of forty-four and afterward showed only a relatively small decline. Ability of performance items began to decline after the early twenties and at a fairly rapid rate, What would be the results of a study In which the very same peosle could be tested over the years, beginning in thelr teens and continuing int> thelr sixties? Despite the difficulties of making such a study, fortunately one investigator has managed to compare the scores made on a group Intelligence test by nearly a Page i of@ ‘© UWSCallede Py LeAcademic English for Tertiary Studies: EAP 5 hundred men during the First World War, when they were college freshmen averaging nineteen years old, with their scores on the same kind of test taken when they were fifty years old and again when they were sixty-one. The results are iilustrated In Graph 2. As the figure shows, scores on the arithmetic items in the test were highest at the age of nineteen and went down steadily thereafter. Scores on items measuring reasoning ability did just about the opposite; they rose steadily and were highest at sixty-one, Scores on items measuring verbal abllity were substantially higher at fifty than at nineteen but then declined slightly at sixty-one. The total score rose markedly from nineteen to fifty and afterward showed a slight decline, The results are not entirely satisfactory because they are for men only - and for a group that had an above-average 1.Q. at first testing and presumably led lives more favourable than average to continued intellectual growth. However, they do offer a strong indication that intelligence - at least as measured by present tests - is by no means the monopoly of the young and that there is hardly any cause for despair over what will happen to our mental abilities as we get older. Renee) © Uwscolleae Pty LedAcademic English for Tertiary Studies: EAP S 120 Perlormance Verbal | Tota 10 ; 0 0 4 E « 2 180 18-19 20-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 Age Graph 1: 1.9. by age groups Various age groups make different scores on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale; the differences are apparent in both the verbal and performance parts of the test and in the total score as well 6 50 6 Age at toting: Average score ns ane Total Graph 2: At what age are we the smartest? The bars show the scores (not 1.Q'5) for three of the skills measured by an intelligence test, as well as the total score, made by men who were first tested when they were nineteen-year-old soe of (© UNSCalleae Pty Lid‘Academic English for Tertiary Studies: EAP S college freshmen, again when they were fifty, and a third time when they were sixty-one, eee acts © wsColeae Py Ltd