Week 42: I Am Low IQ for the First Time 🤯

The Dream Team That Couldn’t

This summer, I got an “internship offer” from a group who claimed they would revolutionize hiring.
After a few chats, I realized they might actually not worked once:

• no experience ✅
• no skills ✅
• no money ✅
• …but a big idea to change the world 🌍

So I politely refused. (And by “politely,” I mean I ran.)

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The Test That Tested My Faith in Humanity

Fast forward a few weeks.
Another company reached out — the one that asked for my 20-year-old high school transcript (yes, really).
They sent me a link to the Thomas GIA Test.

I thought, “Sure, why not?”
Then I opened it.
It was close to purple 💜…

Clearly not AI-generated, because no AI would dare produce such terrible UX.
The test looked like something between kindergarten worksheets and gorilla enrichment puzzles:

• “Wang is taller than Zhang. Who is shorter?”
• “Find how many characters are pronounced the same.”
  
• “Find the furthest number.”
  

They even asked me to use my native language for accuracy.
Which is cute — except their “translation” was so bad I had to translate it back into English to understand what it meant. 🤦‍♂️

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The Humiliation

I was bored.
I’m a programmer. I can do calculus in my head.
These questions were so simple they made me question their IQ, not mine.

Then… the twist.
That afternoon, I got an email:

“We regret to inform you… you did not pass the test.”

Wait. WHAT?! 😳

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My “Low IQ” Report

I downloaded my “results.”
There are five test areas:

• Perceptual Speed
• Reasoning
• Number Speed & Accuracy
• Spatial Visualization
• Word Meaning

I scored above average in four — but below in one.
Guess which?
“Word Meaning.”

So apparently, I failed because I couldn’t understand their bad Chinese translations.
Honestly, that’s fair. Even Google Translate would cry over that mess. 😂

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The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

Being a Digital Learning Game student, I got curious.
How did this “test” even come to exist?

Turns out it was born in the late 1980s, a commercial adaptation of the British Army Recruitment Battery (BARB).
Yes — it was literally a military IQ test turned corporate HR tool.

Even more shocking?
No scientific paper, no peer-reviewed journal, and no transparency in 50 years.
Even the MBTI (the astrology of psychology) has more research behind it! 🧠✨

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Cultural Mismatch Madness

The test proudly claims to be “localized.”
Let’s see:

• In Chinese, testers count characters with the same pronunciation.
  
• In English, testers find capitalized letters.
  

Totally equal, right? 😅
(52 English letters vs. literally millions of Chinese characters.)

They did not separate the data with languages. Surely I am average in the other 4 tests among my home people.

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HR’s Favorite Toy 🧩

Despite this, many HRs swear by the GIA test.
They call it “scientific.” I call it pseudo-science wrapped in corporate purple.

If they really believe this measures intelligence, then maybe it’s actually a loyalty test —
to find the people who will do anything without questioning the boss. 🙇‍♂️

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Final Thoughts 💭

They bragged about having “80,000+ applicants every month.”
(Why does every company love this number? It’s not even that impressive.)

Europe once led the world in logic and innovation.
Now it’s letting unscientific, outdated IQ tests decide who gets hired.

If this is the new standard for intelligence,
then I’m proud to say —
I’m officially low IQ. 🥳

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