World's Hardest IQ Test

I spent 9 hours yesterday going through a neuropsych exam at Uof Washington as part of my current set of diagnostic processes.

I had read about these things, but it really hadn't prepared me for the reality of just how hard parts of it are. It's a comprehensive set of cognitive tests that really tap out the limits of how far your mind can stretch in a couple of dozen ways and it's surprising how simple some of them sounds but get hard as the day wears on.

I don't get the results back until next week, and then there is a 2 hour debrief. Nonetheless, during the day a couple of things stood out to me:

I think my math and visual skills are fine, although there was some weirdness. Part of the test is draw some patterns they have you draw. The patterns start out simple, a line with 2 boxes, then get progressively more complex until they verge on Piccaso-like, abstract geometric forms. There are a little more than a dozen or so of them. Later in the day, they ask you to redraw them all from memory, as many as you can. Here's the weird part: I absolutely nailed the most complex patterns (in fact I worked the list backward from most to least complex). I utterly failed to remember the first 3 patterns. Couldn't recall them. It gets further weird because even later in the day, they show you flash cards with lots of patterns on them, and you have to pick out which ones were on the first list. I'm very sure I got 100% on that because I remembered them when I saw them, even though I could have drawn them to save my life.

They give you a set of cards in a sort of sorting game, your job is to put the right card in the right pile. You are not told the rules, only if the answer is right or wrong. Also, the rules change according to a meta rule. (they don't tell you that at first). I think I did okay on this, although I don't think I completely nailed the meta rule.

They show you a series of pictures, each representing some mathematical concept which you need to figure out, again based on feedback (in this case a door bell). It starts out very simple and gets pretty complex (and there are meta rules here as well). I was reminded of the Alistair Reynold's story Diamond Dogs, and a little grateful they were not chopping off my hands. I think I did well on this one.

They give you increasingly long strings of numbers to remember and feed back, forward, backwards etc. I petered out around 7 or 8, which I think is normal.

Okay, now for the weird, weird ones:
They tell you a story which you are to memorize and repeat back. It’s about 2 minutes long. I utterly failed at this. Utterly. I got some basic plot elements and that was about it. I was quizzed afterward and recognized all the relevant facts (at least I think I did, there was no feedback) but did not retell the story well. Okay, now here is where it gets weird. An hour later they asked me to retell the story again. Bang! I nailed it. Or, at least I did light years better than the first time. Details, plot, facts etc. Two stories, same results. Weird.

Same with lists of word associations. They would give me a list of 15 or so word pairs, e.g. elephant/glass, raccoon/paper, lizard/clown, insect/acorn (in fact, I can repeat the entire list now). They give you the list, then ask the first half, prompting for the second. Miserable failure. I couldn’t do it, try as I might (and there was a point of pride here). An hour later not only did I have the whole list but knew the 2 words the interviewer didn’t ask me. Weird.

It’s like there is something wrong with my short term memory buffer. Stuffs going in, isn’t getting lost, but isn’t available until it’s moved into medium or long term storage.

The other total failure was person/name association. I think I came close to a zero on that and was frustrated to the point of getting angry. I simply can’t remember peoples names and there doesn’t seem to be any long-term recovery effect. They are just lost.

There were other things, but it was the standard IQ stuff, arranging blocks with diagonal patterns into pictures, a spelling test (which was okay), how many words with the letter P can you name in a minute etc.

There was also a test where they blindfolded me, gave me some blocks of odd shapes and a vertical peg board and timed how quickly I could get all the pegs in the holes with my right hand, my left hand then both hands. Then they asked me to draw the board. Again, I think I did okay.

Actual, factual results come out next week Wednesday, and I’m really curious to see what, if anything is going on.