Frequently Asked Questions About IQ Enhancement
and IQ Test Preparation

This page answers attempts to answer some frequently asked questions we receive. Note we are not professional psychologists (though we've given some study to the subject) and have no authorization whatsoever from any government agency or private company to provide any information. Given the legal and political environment in our country of operation (the USA), anything we write should be considered to be purely for entertainment purposes. We formally recommend that you ignore everything we write, and trust your local educational authorities to do what they feel is best for society. In any case, we certainly don't have any definitive answers to any questions. The following are simply our admittedly ill-informed guesses. If you would like to see the test materials we have for sale and rent, visit our web site.

First, a caution. You probably aren't doing your child a favor by putting them in an environment where they will struggle in vain to keep up with their peers. Think carefully about your objectives.

  1. I want to buy/rent the WISC IV, WPPSI-III, etc. Do you have them in stock? Can you get them? Our current inventory is always online and up-to-date. Sorry, we can't get the current versions of the Stanford-Binet, WISC, WPPSI or WAIS tests, and do not know of anyone who will sell or rent them to you. We only stock older tests.
  2. I'm a professional, but how do I know if I'm qualified to buy or rent a professional IQ test? Sorry, only graduate students in psychology and professional psychologists can rent or buy these tests from us. This means that nurses, school teachers, counselors, etc. cannot. Consider non-professional tests which are similar.
  3. We home-school our child and wonder if he/she is gifted, and possibly qualified for public school Gifted and Talented classes. What might we do? We think you should test your child. Assuming you are a bright college graduate, you can probably do a reasonable job at test administration and interpretation. Note that parents often show bias in scoring their child's responses. Do your best to avoid this if you want results that approximate those of a professional tester. You shouldn't have any problems finding a local professional who will do testing for $300 to $400.
  4. My child is taking an IQ test very soon. What can I do to help him do his best? The obvious suggestions are that you make sure your child is well nourished, unstressed, rested, and tested at that time of day when he is most attentive. You should also give your child a bit of practice at taking tests similar to those he will be taking. This will help you identify problems with following instructions or conceptual problems which can be overcome with a few examples.
  5. I want to increase my child's IQ. What can I do over the next 3 months or more to accomplish this? Take lots of tests. Our guess is that you can increase scores 10-20 points by doing this. These tests can be of almost any form, but we think IQ related tests will produce the best results.
  6. What materials EMS stocks are closest in content to the current tests? For each test, we've listed relevant tests in order of similarity, with most similar tests first.
    1. WPPSI III, IV
      WPPSI-R
      WPPSI
      WISC-R (especially for brightest children)
      WAIS-R (especially for brightest children)
    2. WISC IV
      WISC-III
      WISC-R
      Epreuve Individuelle d'Intelligence Générale, 1951. WISC test adapted for use in French speaking Canada.
      WISC
      WAIS-R
      WAIS
    3. Raven's Progressive Matrices
      Grandstand Touch and Match, IQ Builders. 1984. Pattern matching game for 2 to 5 year olds.
      Nemesis Factor, by Hasbro. Excellent tool for teaching pattern recognition useful in series completion questions. While it's marketed to ages 10 and up, our bright five-year-old really enjoyed it. $29 purchase or $19 rental.
      Playful Patterns, by Discovery Toys, © 1991. Often used for preschool screening. $20 purchase only.

 

WISC, WPPSI, WAIS and other terms are trademarks Harcourt Assessment and their respective holders. EMS is not associated in any whatsoever with any these or any other companies.