Basically, it is a measure of intelligence.

I took this IQ test a good month ago. According to this test, my IQ is 133 - that's Mensa level, mind you. Now I'm not saying that the test I took was a definitive determinant of one's true IQ, but I am quite proud of this achievement--although I am most certain that this will not really get me anywhere in life. Call it a morale booster, if you will.

Many people have heard of the "IQ," but not so many know what it is, exactly. For those who don't know what it is exactly, it stands for "Intelligence Quotient." Basically, it is a measure of intelligence. While there is no single true measurement of IQ, most agencies that try to determine one's IQ do so using the bell curve above.

Those of you who have taken Statistics courses know that the bell curve above is a normal distribution; well, that is because most IQ tests use this sort of normal curve as a measure of one's IQ. In most cases, the IQ of a population comes in the form of this normal distribution, with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of about 15. That of course means that most people have an IQ of between 85 and 115.

So if IQ is determined by this normal distribution, why then is it called an Intelligence Quotient when there is no quotient? Well the earlier versions of the IQ test calculated one's Intelligence Quotient as one's mental age divided by his or her chronological age. For example, a 22-year old person with a mental age of 25 (as calculated by the IQ test he or she takes) would have an IQ of (25/22) * 100= 113.

However, problems arise when using this measure of IQ. If, for example, a 10-year old achieves a mental age of 22 (i.e. Marilyn vos Savant), that person's IQ would be 220--a value that is so far beyond the normal distribution of IQ that it would be deemed practically impossible to obtain. Furthermore, that person's IQ would only decrease with age, if that person's mental age stayed the same while the person grew older. So all-in-all, the Intelligence Quotient as a ratio is no longer used, and the IQ as a normal distribution is much more widely accepted.

I may try my hand at other online IQ tests, just to get a better idea of where my IQ is--though such information truly is trivial.