Take the Wonderlic test.

March 1, 2002 11:40 AM

Take the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic is a 50-question IQ test administered by the National Football League to all prospective draft picks. Teams use the test results to varying degree, in part to determine the ability of athletes to learn systems and grow as a player. Interestingly, offensive tackles and centers have the highest average NFL Wonderlic scores. (The test here is a fast 15-question sample; you'll need a piece of paper to jot down your answers.)
posted by werty (31 comments total)

You should also give yourself a two minute time limit.
posted by iceberg273 at 11:42 AM on March 1, 2002

I missed one. But I have no idea how to score it on their scale. I'm guessing that I just multiply 14/15 by the original 50 questions.

Gives me a 46, bar 6.

Hm.

(I skipped the X Y & Z remuneration question.)
posted by silusGROK at 11:53 AM on March 1, 2002

i had to take this test when i applied for my current job. i'm a consultant (computer programmign)
posted by AaRdVarK at 11:54 AM on March 1, 2002

I missed two, and they were dumb logic ones (boy plays baseball, hats, boy wears hat, don't know why I didn't say true, and I picked the wrong shape as being different.). The math ones took me a while, I'm fairly out of algerbra word problem practice, but I got them all eventually.
posted by mathowie at 12:01 PM on March 1, 2002

I remember reading somewhere that Jeff George got one of the lowest scores ever. If you follow football, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.
posted by owillis at 12:03 PM on March 1, 2002

I missed two (matching the name misspellings was one), but I dispute that PRESENT and RESERVE can't be antonyms. Damn antonyms. Bull. I can't believe I'm this riled up.
posted by thebigpoop at 12:25 PM on March 1, 2002

I feel good that if I were 150 lbs. heavier, a foot taller, and built for pain, I'd be among the most intelligent football players in the league. Alas, none of those hold true, so my perfect score only means that I have to work my ass off just to get a medium paying job of $40,000.
posted by BlueTrain at 12:30 PM on March 1, 2002

Let me turn on insensitive stereotyping prick mode for a second.

Newswriters score the same as offensive tackles. That explains a lot! Har har har!

Ahem.
posted by Hildago at 1:18 PM on March 1, 2002

I only missed the PRESENT and RESERVE question, but like thebigpoop, I feel that the words do have contradictory meanings if you use them as verbs.

It's comforting to know that according to the Wonderlic scale, I have a high probability of being a smartass.
posted by OneBallJay at 1:19 PM on March 1, 2002

Iceberg is right in that there is a time limit. The site says five minutes max. That seems to be a big point of the test; not that the questions are hard, just that you have to think quickly. I know that I wouldn't have gotten to the end of the test if I hadn't ignored that rule.

(What can I say, those math qs were harder than I thought!)

Adjust scores accordingly.
posted by Hildago at 1:26 PM on March 1, 2002

Question 2 is written incorrectly. Saying "the boy plays baseball" does not automatically mean the boy is playing baseball right now, but the question assumes it does mean that. You should give yourself credit if you answered either "true" or "not certain."
posted by aaron at 1:38 PM on March 1, 2002

So there's a five-minute time limit -- placing an emphasis on thinking on one's feet -- and Jeff George got one of the lowest scores ever? Figures. He'd hang back there in the pocket trying to make up his mind before (usually) overthrowing a by-then covered receiver.
posted by alumshubby at 1:57 PM on March 1, 2002

I missed two, but:

Present (verb) meaning 3: to give or bestow formally
Reserve (verb) meaning 1: to hold in reserve: to keep back

Those are antonyms, dude.

Both from Miriam-Webster Online.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 2:02 PM on March 1, 2002

what if you PRESENT something to your closet?
then aren't you also reserving it?

aaron: the third statement is "The boy wears a hat". This also doesn't necessarily mean right now.
posted by srw12 at 2:11 PM on March 1, 2002

So I got em all right and in fewer than 5 minutes. I can also run the 100 yards in fewer than 5 minutes, and do fewer than 5 pushups where do I sign up.
posted by onegoodmove at 2:23 PM on March 1, 2002

PRESENT/RESERVE trickery! Damn that question!

14/15.
posted by David Dark at 2:28 PM on March 1, 2002

"i had to take this test when i applied for my current job."

I've taken it when applying for three of my last four. It's really gotten to be quite entertaining. I like to wait until the last minute then just randomly mark answers. It hasn't stopped me from being hired yet.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:36 PM on March 1, 2002

I found it emotionally exhausting. 15/15.
posted by Succa at 3:35 PM on March 1, 2002

sigh. shape 5 question 6 contains no parallel lines, while all the other contain at least two... i missed it, does this mean my brain is broken? the 4 sides really didn't even occur to me... i'm only slightly worried.
posted by rhyax at 3:38 PM on March 1, 2002

I'm a genius!
posted by zekinskia at 3:43 PM on March 1, 2002

rhyax, you are obviously a rare genius, because I missed the same question by using the same reasoning.

This thread points out exactly why these tests aren't very accurate.
posted by MegoSteve at 4:46 PM on March 1, 2002

I only 'missed' PRESENT/RESERVE, but as I think we've shown here, the Wonderlic geniuses are the ones that got THAT one wrong.

I give myself 15/15.
posted by kfury at 5:06 PM on March 1, 2002

I have ALWAYS wanted to take this test. I used to hear about some dumb ass player getting some feeble score and wonder what the fuss was about. I got 15 out of 15.

When I was an pot smoking, class skipping high school student of 17, not sure if college was in my future, i went to the Armed Forces Recruiting Center by Seattle University High School. I got 40/40 on the test. It was very much like this test.
posted by vito90 at 5:23 PM on March 1, 2002

I don't see the problem with the PRESENT/RESERVE question. they have nothing to do with eachother in normal context, and i doubt the NFL players know the dictionary definition

aaron: we do this stuff in discrete math
a: boy plays baseball
b: baseball players war hats
assumption: a=b
a

b

OK, now that i sound like a pompous ass, i'll be leaving.
posted by jmd82 at 5:29 PM on March 1, 2002

stupid brackets in html
a
-assumption-
b
posted by jmd82 at 5:30 PM on March 1, 2002

that present/reserve thing was bullshit.

jmd82: so present and reserve being used as verbs don't constitute a "normal context"?
posted by juv3nal at 8:01 PM on March 1, 2002

If (if a then b) and (a) then (b). It's called modus ponens, isn't it?
posted by Hildago at 11:33 PM on March 1, 2002

Rhyax, MegoSteve: Shape 4 also contains no right angles. Not that I counted the ways in which shapes 4 and 5 were different from the rest; I just used my multiple-choice testing intuition and picked the "correct" answer based on what I thought the test designers wanted. It drove me up the wall, though, and wasted precious time that I could have used figuring out the word problems that I ended up skipping.
[/bitterness]
posted by skoosh at 1:49 AM on March 2, 2002

Actually, no...modus ponens is used for when you use consequence. For example, if it were a=>b as thw assumption, it would become
=> -assumption-
That is modus ponens.
Arg, I can explain this off the top of my head here, but why not on test...
posted by jmd82 at 10:33 AM on March 2, 2002

My problem with the baseball/hat question is that I'm too damn smart for my own good. I scanned the questions, realized that they were generally in order of increasing difficulty, and decided that question number 2 couldn't possibly be that subtle, so there must be something wrong with the wording. So I overanalyzed it, trying to figure out "what they're really asking," instead of just answering with the first thought that popped into my mind and moving on. And thus chose the wrong answer. According to them, anyway.

But I'm still a genius!
posted by aaron at 11:07 AM on March 2, 2002

In that case, you are probably correct aaron!
posted by jmd82 at 12:42 PM on March 2, 2002