Psychology | Mental health | Cognition | IQ

I Once Was A Giver of Cognitive Tests

and now I am laughing out loud

Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

For decades, I was a licensed Psychologist who gave Psychological tests as part of my professional career. I gave many kinds of Psychological tests, including those that looked at a person’s cognitive abilities.

Many of the tests had manuals that detailed exactly what the person giving the test was “allowed” to say — even answers to what we would now call FAQs from the people taking the tests. The tests were standardized and everyone giving a test was supposed to say the exact same thing to everyone they were testing.

There are many good uses for most Psychological testing and a battery of tests can give a lot of information about a person, information that can be used to help them.

As one giving those tests, I would never say to the client that I was amazed at how well they did. That would have been wrong, not part of the manual, and terribly unprofessional.

Nor would I ever have told a client that they had “aced” the test. One does not “ace” a cognitive test; one gets a score.

I am not familiar with the cognitive test taken by a certain politician [I try to never say his name] so I can only guess that it…