In order to create a regular IQ-test, normed on a selected population, that is accurate at extreme levels; one must norm the test on tens of thousands of randomly selected individuals.
First of all it is already apparent that a so called “true randomized” selection of such a great number of individuals can not be done.
Secondly, there is no economic benefit in this since such a test would not be of any practical use for a psychologist.
In order to bring some kind of answer to those that seek their true ability instead of “More than X” we have created the CFNSE.
Our goal is to offer a test to those that have outstanding performances on standardized test and use their data to norm the CFNSE and by doing this we can hopefully give our testees the answer to their question: “How far up on the scale can I reach?”.
Last but not least it is important to know that this test is experimental, thus a score on the CFNSE should not in any way be put in relation to a score on a regular intelligence test. It might actually be so that the CFNSE measures a different ability than regular tests, despite similarities in the testing format.
Maximum score on a supervised intelligence test - IQ is reported as "above 135"
History of the CFNSE
Beta version
The development of the test started towards the end of 2004. The Officers of the ePiq society wanted a test that could be used as an admission test to the society. The requirement was psychometric validity and accuracy in order to meet the demands of the society’s strict admission criteria.
A total of 3 people undertook this challenge. With the suggestions and ideas from other High-IQ profiles a first beta version of the test was created.
Version A
After the first evaluation and revision of the test it was published on the first of January 2005. The name of the test was “the Culture Fair Numerical & Spatial Examination – form A”.
In conjunction to the publication of the CFNSE-A an international contest was arranged. Male and female participants competed in separate groups. The person with the overall highest score from both groups was Chris Chsioufis, the founder of the ePiq society.
Version B
After the end of the contest the test CFNSE-A was withdrawn and revised. The revised form contained 46 items and was published under the name CFNSE-B. This version of the exam was available for 6 months. During this time a lot of data was gathered and carefully analyzed. Statistical calculations were performed and the psychometric properties of each individual item were reviewed.
During this time the B-version of the test was also administered to a handful of randomly selected people that were not associated with the high-IQ world in any way. The reason for this was that some people believed that people with a supposedly high IQ did in fact not have a high IQ. They also claimed that tests like the CFNSE were not valid and most people could actually perform well on them. The result of this study proved the opposite; a representative “high-IQ testee” typically provides roughly 8 times as many correct answers on the CFNSE as the “average person”.
Version C
In October 2005, almost 1 year after the initial publication of the test, it was revised to be a multiple choice test. The alternatives for answering were based on incorrect answers given by previous testees. This was done in order to keep the quality of the answer alternatives at a high level, making it harder to “estimate” the answer. Any bad and unclear items were removed or modified. This version of the test was designated CFNSE-C.
The new version receives a lot of positive criticism from many testees and IQ-test review sites. All this positive response resulted in a set of prizes being introduced. A total of 7 testees with a most 4 errors (resulting in a maximum balanced score) would be awarded a prize consisting of metal plate with a wooden support.
Plates have been awarded to testees from theese countries:
Greece, Croatia, China, Serbia, Spain, New Zealand and South Korea
A grand prize, consisting of a large cup, was also to be awarded the first person that scored a perfect score, with no errors. However, it would take a couple of years before anyone claimed this prize.
Regretfully, towards the middle of 2006, the CFNSE suffers from answer publication and also copyright violation. Apparently some people registered numerical items from the CFNSE in number sequence databases. The sequence items were registered in their own names – not the names of the true creators. This is an example of plagiarism! However, it is very hard to copyright protect a series of numbers, especially if they can be reduced to a simple mathematical formula. This problem was at first confined to easy items “below” the scoring scale interval. However, with time even harder items were registered in the database and the CFNSE had to be revised to not include item types that could be registered in such databases.
Version D
This revised version of the CFNSE only contained items that could not be represented using regular mathematical formulas. A good thing about the revision is that the remaining items in fact require less time in order to be solved (this does not mean that they are not difficult). The attractiveness of the CFNSE increased a lot during the 15 months this version was available.
Hundreds of envelopes that have carried CFNSE submissions from all around the world!
An indication of the increasing popularity was the large number of high-IQ societies that accepted results on the CFNSE for admission.
Final version
In November 2007 the test had attracted 275 testees, only counting the latest version. This resulted in enough data to perform the final statistical calculations needed to determine which items held the best psychometric properties – thus finalizing the test.
At this point a person from South Korea actually managed to obtain a score that was utterly perfect! Therefore he was awarded the grand prize.
The cup was awarded to Han-Kyung Lee from South Korea.
The initial version of the CFNSE originally contained 54 items. After more than 3 years of research, only the best 30 items remain - together with a set of well selected answer alternatives. This final version of the test was simply designated CFNSE - without any version marker.
Removal of the test
Regretfully the final version of the CFNSE did not last for long - only a couple of weeks. A dishonest person under the alias "Politicusman" hotlinked the items and presented them in a public online forum, asking for answers to the test. Since the test items were hotlinked the unsuspecting viewers did not know that the answer were supposed to be kept a secret. As a consequence, the viewers provided answers to about a third of the test items. Since the answers were not published by the culprit himself it would be very hard take any legal actions against him.
As of November 16 the CFNSE is no longer officially scored. However, the future of the CFNSE would be decided by a vote among the testees that took the CFNSE.
Self scoring version
After the votes had been counted and weighted in accordance with each individuals score on the CFNSE it was decided that the CFNSE would be re-published in a slightly shortened form. The results on this version are not “official”, so scores can’t be used for admission to IQ-societies.
Due to the new format there was no reason to require that testees submitted answers by post, due to this a self scoring answer sheet was introduced.
The statistics related to the test are still based on the hundreds of testees that took the previous versions of the CFNSE. No “unofficial” scored have been used for statistical calculations.
- Etienne Forsström (Co-Author of the CFNSE)