Online IQ tests not all they’re cracked up to be

I am a 28-year-old IQ test virgin.

I have never allowed this gigantic brain of mine to be poked, prodded or dissected by questions about planes, trains, automobiles and who would get to your house first if we each left here at the same time.

However, I have always wanted to give it a try so I could prove what I’ve been telling my friends all this time—I am as smart as Einstein. Just check out that mug of me to the right of this text.

What do you think? Smart…not smart?

After taking four online IQ tests, I’m going to have to go with the latter.

I took the IQ test (aka turn-your-brain-to-mush test) on four different Web sites.

Results for each test were sent by e-mail, so after taking each one I checked my e-mail as quickly as possible.

The results from www.quickiqtest.com reported my IQ to be 139. I was sure I would hit at least 155. That’s when it hit me.

I said to myself, “I may not be as smart as I think I am, but 139 is still pretty good.” My next batch of results came from www.fastfreeiqtest.com. Surprisingly the geniuses there said my IQ was only 115. Disappointed even more, I hung my head in shame and said to myself, “Man, something’s gotta be wrong.”

I blamed this score on a poorly calibrated test. Calibrated.

Hey that’s a big word—told you I wasn’t dumb. It’s the test’s fault. Determined to prove the girth of my intelligence, I Googled more testing sites and found www.IQTest.com.

This site guaranteed its scores were the most accurate. Further into the abyss of ignorance I fell. The results were not even close to the other tests and I don’t mean that in a good way, and I will not reveal the results.

Let’s just say the score was not a triple-digit figure and I was now crying and babbling incoherently (another big word).

Despite my gut telling me not to check the results from the last site, www.FunEducation.com. I did it anyway.

BINGO.152.

Ladies and gentlemen someone has finally accurately tested my intelligence. I logged back into www.FunEducation.com to take the test again.

After all the folks at FunEducation.com sent me an e-mail congratulating me on my excellent results and labeling me a genius.

I figured it would be the same test and I made plans to take it every night before I went to bed. What could possibly be a better confidence (aka ego) builder than opening your inbox each morning and someone telling you that you’re great—someone not named Oprah or Dr. Phil.

I have not taken another test and I will not subject my brain to further manipulation. I decided to delete the e-mails, keeping the one documenting the higher score.

You see, I’m not a complete idiot.

I have come to the conclusion that no one else has to know what those other scores are. Well, no one except those who read this column and I trust you will keep this information to yourself.

I discovered the best confidence booster is what you say to yourself. So here is the moral of my story: do not wait for others to validate your life.

Instead, create your own unique method of validation. Mine happens to be a small deviation from the truth, but so far that’s what works for me.

By the way deviation is another big word.

That makes four, but who’s counting.