Create test items

Introduction

If you like to create difficult problems to test mental abilities, but do not want to produce and publish an entire test of your own, you may consider submitting one or more of your items or ideas to I.Q. Tests for the High Range. When deemed suitable, your problems will be included in a future test, to be assembled using material collected in this way, probably from multiple authors.

Your rights and benefits

1. You will be credited on the test, mentioning the number of items for which you are directly responsible and the number of items for which you provided the idea, insofar applicable;
2. If your material is not used or the project cancelled, you will be notified (provided your e-mail address is still active then) so that you can use the item or idea for yourself if desired; the material will then be destroyed and not in any way distributed or shown to others;
3. You become known as a creator of problems for high-range I.Q. tests, which will bring you fame, fortune, women, and whatever else you may desire.

Your obligations

1. You must only submit material that has not been seen by anyone but yourself, to ensure its security;
2. You must keep the item or idea and its solution and explanation absolutely secret, in principle for ever (or until you are notified that it will not be used), to prevent its invalidation;
3. You must provide the item or idea with the correct answer, and with a full, explicit explanation; that is, an explanation understandable to who does not know it yet (so no "telegram style" only understandable to yourself);
4. You must be prepared to wait long before the eventual publication of that test; one to two years is realistic, given that it will take time to collect enough suitable items;
5. You must accept that an item submitted by you may be modified to make it suitable, in which case you will be credited for providing the idea rather than the item itself;
6. You must include not more than one item or idea, with its solution and explanation, in one message; if you have multiple items or ideas, put them in separate messages; thus, rejected submissions can be destroyed without affecting other submissions;
7. You must include your name when sending an item or idea.

The nature of items

Test items should meet the following criteria:

1. There must be one unique solution, provable by logic and/or facts, and no alternative solutions of equal or nearly equal logical strength;
2. The probability of a candidate arriving at the correct answer by mere chance (guessing) must be smaller than about 1 in 50, and preferably much smaller to infinitesimal; this means that either open items are required, or multiple-choice items that have been constructed especially to reduce the chance of guessing right, for instance by letting the candidate pick multiple alternatives from a given set. This second criterion serves to prevent the kind of problems that have an easy to guess answer (e.g., yes/no) and require the candidate to provide an explanation in order to prove that one has indeed solved the problem. Such is an admission of weakness; good problems have hard to guess answers, so that the mere fact of giving the correct answer suffices as proof that one has solved the problem. The art of problem-making lies in formulating the item thus that the probability of arriving at the intended answer without actually solving the problem is very low to zero, thus eliminating the need to require an explanation. For better understanding, one should also realize that such explanations can not be objectively scored, while answers can. Explanations can be formulated differently by different candidates, so that an almost infinite number of possible correct replies exist. Explanations therefore have to be subjectively judged on a case to case basis, which is undesirable in tests.

This leaves many different item types possible. For convenience, here is a - not necessarily complete - overview of item types usable in unsupervised tests, on the understanding that isolating one of these types in a particular item is not always possible, and that items sometimes combine two or more of these types; each empty rectangle represents a potential item type, although some are more common than others:

Sending visual material

If you wish to send visual material but are not able to digitize it and send it via electronic mail, you may send it on paper or otherwise as hard-copy to the address referred to under Introduction on this page.

Certification

Please include the below text when you send an item or idea; replace YOURNAME by your name: