The Sargasso Sea is an area of the Atlantic Ocean in the centre of the clockwise-rotating Gulf Stream, strewn with free-floating brown seaweed of the genus Sargassum. In the past, sailors believed that any wrecked or abandoned ship would eventually be carried to the heart of the Sargasso Sea by the currents of the Gulf Stream. There, it was thought, lay a huge, slowly rotating graveyard of shipwrecks, clustered together, so that one could climb from one to another. No one who attempted this lived to tell however, for it was impossible to approach the site without getting one's own ship entangled in the sea of wrecks, after which slow starvation was inevitable.
The Sargasso Test is the Sargasso Sea of test problems; it contains items that have been removed from other tests in the course of twelve years for various reasons. They were too easy, too hard, "ambiguous", never solved, too knowledge-based, too math-biased, or simply weird. Experience has shown though that such "bad" items are often the best for detecting intelligence at the very highest level. So they receive a second chance, to make up for their premature removal. In the Sargasso Test they lay clustered together, waiting to be solved by you. Be careful though; no one who attempted this has lived to tell yet, for it seems impossible to approach the test without getting one's head entangled in this sea of wrecks, after which slow starvation is inevitable.
| Number of items | 65 |
| Verbal | 43 |
| Numerical | 8 |
| Visual spatial | 10 |
| Logical | 4 |
| Possible raw score range | 0 to 65 |
| Years of creation of original versions | 1995 to 2002 |
| Prior versions | Test For Genius (all versions except Revision 2004), Cooijmans Intelligence Test Form 1, Evens, Qoymans Multiple-Choice #1 and #2, Qoymans Automatic Test #1 |
| Nature of the problems | Diverse |
| Apparent knowledge requirement | High |
| Language of instruction and verbal items | English |
| Supervised | No |
| Time allowed | Unlimited |
| Reference aids allowed | Yes |
| Physical form | Zipped folder containing H.T.M.L. and image files |
| Test fee | € 20 or U.S. $ 25 |
| Author | Paul Cooijmans |
| Remark | Be careful; no one who attempted this test has lived to tell yet, for it seems impossible to approach it without getting one's head entangled in this sea of wrecks, after which slow starvation is inevitable. |
| Pay in euros | | Pay in U.S. dollars |
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