Genius.

HISTORY OF THE IQ TEST.

A genius was once described as someone with an IQ of over 130, which is also, give or take a point or two, the cut-off point for getting into MENSA. Only 1 in 50 will qualify.

The INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT was 'invented' in 1908 by Alfred Binet, a French psychologist. With Theodore Simon, he published the first intelligence test which graded a child's intelligence by the ratio between his mental and actual ages. Thus a child of 10 who thought as well as a 13 year old would have an IQ of 13 divided by 10 multiplied by the 'average' IQ of 100, hence 130. This test obviously wouldn't work for adults. It was David Wwchsler, an American psychologist, who came up with a way of applying the same principles in 1939. Under his test, the scores of participants are compared with each other to determine IQ. An average or mean score will still gain an IQ of 100.

HOW TO BECOME A GENIUS.

Wisdom may come with old age. Genius, alas, does not. Yet, science says that we may improve our brainpower, so here's how.

Get eight hours sleep. (That's me sorted then, I can do at least 10) We solve problems in our sleep. Dimitri Mendeleev worked out the periodic table in a dream. Paul McCartney dreamt 'Yesterday'.

Eat breakfast. Vital. For lunch, have an omelette and salad followed by a yoghurt for protein and tyrosine. For your dinner, it's fish and omega 3. Repeat for the rest of your life. (Sound sooo boring)

Practice short-term memory. Tests show students can go from memorising a maximum of 16 numbers on one reading to 102 numbers. This is fun at parties. (What sort of parties do these people go to?)

Exercise. It not only improves concentration, but helps you grow new brain cells. (Have they ever tried getting a class of 6 year olds to concentrate after they've been exercising? I don't think so.)

Join a Nunnery. (Do you think they'd have me?) An unusually large number of nuns at the School Sisters Of Notre Dame in minnesota are centenarians free of dementia. Scientists have ruled out God and put the findings down to stimulating hobbies such as knitting. (Knitting, stimulating?)

Thanks to a good friend for allowing me to publish this, part of an assignment she did for her psychology O' level course and published on her personal blog. By the way the comments in RED are mine, the responsibility of no-one else.