If you ask Americans whether or not they think their former president George W. Bush is smart, most of them will probably tell you they don’t think so. However, Bush’s IQ score is estimated to be above 120, which puts him in the top ten percent of the population.
It doesn’t seem to make sense. How come someone with such an IQ score is not considered smart? Researchers say: IQ does not tell the whole story. Some people have high IQ scores, but still they can be poor thinkers and decision-makers.
Keith Stanovich, a Canadian professor of human development and applied psychology, has been looking into the “clever fools” phenomenon for 15 years. He says IQ tests are very good at measuring certain mental faculties(能力), including logic, learning ability, working-memory capacity (how much information you can hold in mind), etc. Those faculties play a part in one’s academic success, but rational thinking is more important for us to make good judgments in real-life situations.
IQ tests fail to work when it comes to rational thinking. That’s because they are unable to assess things such as a person’s ability to weigh up information, or whether an individual can set aside the cognitive biases(认知偏差)that may be misleading.
“A high IQ is like height in a basketball player,” says David Perkins, who studies thinking and reasoning skills at Harvard University. “It is very important, all other things being equal. But all other things aren’t equal. It takes a lot more to be a good basketball player than being tall, and it takes a lot more to be a good thinker than having a high IQ.”
小题1:According to the text your academic success depends on your __________.
A．logic
B．mental faculties
C．learning ability
D．working-memory capacity小题2:If you need to decide where to invest your money, you must use your ______________
A．IQ scores
B．IQ test
C．rational thinking
D．cognitive biases小题3:We know from the text that ____________
A．the former president George W. Bush has a high IQ score
B．many Americans think their former president George W. Bush is smart
C．David Perkins believe that a person’s IQ doesn’t need to be developed
D．Keith Stanovich looked into the “clever fools” phenomenon 5 years ago小题4:What is the text mainly about?
A．Those who have high IQ do better than those who don’t in everything.
B．People with high IQ scores must be good decision-makers
C．People with high IQ scores are always smart in every way.
D．Why a high IQ doesn’t mean you’re smart
