Mensa Material?

~ Laura

How do you prep for the Mensa test?

The last standardized test I took was the SATs. My preparation for that could best be described as “whatever.” I did far more for the Mensa test, which I hope demonstrates my growing maturity but is probably a better indication of my preference for goofy stunts in the name of journalism over potentially life-altering bubble-filling-in sessions. I took the Mensa workout quiz and learned that I was much better at the math questions than the word ones. This is ironic, considering what I do for a living. But did you know that “banalities” is the only other 10-letter word one can make from the letters in “insatiable”? Because I did not. I scored 25 out of 30, which inspired both confidence and concern. I—more or less—stopped drinking alcohol for the two weeks before the test. While that decision was almost entirely the result of a half-marathon I was running, I made the executive decision to add it into the Mensa test prep category, too. I did a three-day juice cleanse, again not specifically for the test, but it was healthy and horrible so it counts. (Counter-narrative to the last point: Anyone willing to pay $150 to drink kale, cucumber, and cayenne for three days should be automatically banned from any and all societies that celebrate higher intelligence.)

Published by Laura

17 thoughts on “Mensa Material?”

    1. To get to the other side? There was a very good Columbo where the murder took place in a Mensa-like group’s clubhouse. Jamie Lee Curtis had a bit part.

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  3. My dad used to joke that he joined Mensa, went to a meeting, and realized he didn’t want to hang out with those people.

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    1. Gah, I’ve been so busy today and distracted that I forgot the real punchline. He said he went to a Mensa meeting and when he was leaving one of the other members couldn’t get his car started. and nobody there knew how to fix it. (Well, except my dad, of course. But the story never seems to end with him fixing the car.)

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  4. It’s probably like a meeting of those horrible “gifted moms” at school who are always telling you how smart their kids are. My son passed the test for the Johns Hopkins CTY program but we also couldn’t stand most of those people so we didn’t send him. Or any of the people who send their kids to chess camp. I’m inclined to think that truly briliant people just are so, and they don’t make being brilliant the main part of their identity — rather they tend to do stuff with their intellect.

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  5. Let’s all agree to stop using the word gifted. When did it become not enough to be smart? You have to smart and special.

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  6. “Rather they tend to do stuff with their intellect.” Yes. Except that chess and math camp *used* to be places where people who enjoyed that kind of mental activity just used their intellect to do stuff they enjoyed. Now, I fear they’ve been conflated with being gifted/smart/ so at least some people do them to show that they are smart (as in, “you play chess? you must be really smart.”).

    It’s a bummer, actually, for people who just enjoy playing chess or doing math.

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  7. “Except that chess and math camp *used* to be places where people who enjoyed that kind of mental activity just used their intellect to do stuff they enjoyed.”

    Bummer.

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  8. When did it become not enough to be smart?

    When public schools decided to limit more challenging education to “gifted and talented” programs. Precisely then.

    I think brilliant people are people. Some are vain, some aren’t. Some are clubbable, some aren’t.

    It’s so hard to separate parental love from parental ego. Only when children become adults or rebellious teens can one begin to tell if parents were supporting their children or suffocating them. I think kids should do things they enjoy. If they want to go to chess camp, fine. Why not? If they’re really good at chess, but don’t want to go to chess camp, they shouldn’t go to chess camp, even if it would look good on their applications. Life’s too short.

    My parenting tactic of making sure my kids always had good books to read, and the time to read them, is paying off handsomely. And it’s Library Book Sale Season now, which means it’s time to Rotate the Books! Out with the read, in with the unread.

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  9. I’ve been to a couple of Mensa parties. I met a fair number of people who were somehow mismatched to their workplaces – weren’t finding interesting conversations with their workmates. If you are a real smart guy who has somehow ended up on an asphalt paving crew, or woman who has found herself managing a Dunkin Donuts, some sort of artificial way to find people is going to be a godsend.

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    1. dave s.,

      Exactly. I’ve known a couple of people like that. There was the mentally ill, under-employed former insurance agent and opera lover that I once knew very well and I expect would have gotten a lot out of Mensa (he used to haunt various public lectures in our city). I also once found myself having a very animated discussion about our mutual love of audio books with a US-born taxi driver (a very rare critter) on a long drive between suburban Baltimore and suburban DC. He was very insightful on literature. He was also dyslexic and (judging from the name on his business card) Jewish. I bet he would also have gotten a lot out of Mensa.

      It’s very easy to make fun of it when you have a naturally compatible social, professional and intellectual milieu.

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    2. I’ve often thought that way about the blogosphere. I do hang out there to find culture and conversation I don’t get enough of from family and friends.
      I frequented a political discussion forum quite a while back which had self-identified MENSA members, but they seemed to be mainly stuffed-shirt libertarian right wingers. Just through blogs, I met many more interesting people who would never dream of going for MENSA simply because they are too busy actually doing, or thinking about, stuff.

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