Intelligence Quotient: 5 Ways to increase your Intelligence

There is a big difference between Brilliance and Intelligence though they have most times been lumped together. People tend to use them interchangeably without trying to understand the character each of them represents. When a student does exceptionally well in school exams, due to ignorance of the word Intelligence, parents think such children are intelligent, well, that is not true. A student can be brilliant but not intelligent. Before you go ahead to take the IQ test, please follow me through the article and see the importance of Intelligence and why you need to improve yourself.

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According to the Oxford dictionary, Brilliance is the quality of having extraordinary mental capacity while the Merriam Webster dictionary puts it as mental alertness or keenness. Also, the oxford dictionary defines Intelligence as the capacity of mind, especially to understand principles, facts or meanings, acquire knowledge and apply it to practice; the ability to comprehend and learn. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines Intelligence as the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations; the skilled use of reason; the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria.

Without writing much, these definitions should put it at your mind that there is a big difference between brilliance and Intelligence. Let us forgive you for lumping brilliance and Intelligence  in the past due to ignorance, now, you are aware of it. Simply put, brilliance helps a child or a student to reproduce verbatim what he has been taught easily and Intelligence helps a child to solve different questions applying the same principle. Brilliance comes into play most especially in the class and in exams, while Intelligence comes into use most times in our daily lives. 

Intelligence helps us to understand situations, read meanings to things and make the best of decisions. According to Encarta, Intelligence is the general mental capability to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, learn and understand new material, and profit from past experience. Brilliance is quite easy to come by, prevalent among children and students; however, Intelligence is quite rare even in adults.

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Intelligence can be measured through objective criteria (tests) and through different kind of tasks. An American Psychologist, Lewis Terman, formerly used the French’s Binet-Simon test before he revised it using some of the questions by Binet and adding questions that are appropriate for adults and standardized for average performance at each age. It was Terman who then converted this performance into a single score known as the Intelligence Quotient (IQ), which is used to measure how intelligent someone is. Popular intelligent people are T. S. Eliot (Linguistic Intelligence), Albert Einstein (Logical-mathematical Intelligence), Pablo Picasso (Spatial Intelligence), Igor Stravinsky (Musical Intelligence), Martha Graham (Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence), Sigmund Freud (Interpersonal Intelligence), Mohandas Gandhi (Intrapersonal Intelligence) and Charles Darwin (naturalist Intelligence).

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How to compute Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

The German psychologist, William Stern was the first to suggest intelligent quotient and he did this by dividing mental age by the actual age and then multiplying it by 100. For example, if a child of 5 years scored a mental age of 8, then she would get an IQ of 160 (8/5 x 100).

How to increase Intelligence

There are 5 important and provable methods that can help to increase a person’s Intelligence or make such a person more mentally alert, understand situations and make right decisions most times;

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#1 Always learn new things

Intelligent people always want to learn new things. They always reach out to new knowledge; they are sapiosexuals (lovers of knowledge) and they can do anything to learn a thing. All humans are intelligent and that is why they are higher animals, however, our level of Intelligence differs. If you want to increase your Intelligence, then seek out for new things, new activities, experiences and information. Learn how to play instruments, learn how to use house gadgets, search for the things you don’t have solutions to yourself. When you learn new things, you tend to increase your exposure and experience and make you prepared for new situations and new decisions.

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#2 Challenge yourself

Have you ever subjected yourself to a mental pressure whereby you promise yourself to get to the end of a thing before you back off? Have you tried solving a question which gives you problem and you decide never to stop till you get the solution. Well, I have seen a person who keeps solving a particular question for two years till he got the solution (that was me). Always challenge yourself. Always take on difficult tasks. Always stretch your brain; it makes it more sensitive and prepared. When you discovered you have learnt and mastered a thing, then move on to the next one. Always promise yourself to find solutions to problems. Don’t ever back off till you get to the end of it.

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#3 Think Creatively

Intelligent people are known to be very weird in thinking. Sometimes you look at their thoughts when they express it and you ask how human could think of such. Yeah, they think very far and deep. Sometimes, they are like aliens in their thoughts. They actually think outside the box. Similarly, you can help yourself by thinking that deep and far. Don’t take matters too personal and don’t take decisions very fast. Always think and ruminate before taking a step. When you practice these for a time, you become a master of it. 

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Always look at situations from different angles and not a particular angle (narrow thinking). The game of chess is one that could help in this regard. You have to think of the next step before taking a step. You as well have to think of what your opponent will do before you do anything. Always develop new ways of doing things. Even things that have been done in the past, think of faster, better and shorter ways of achieving them.

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#4 Do things the hard way

Just like you exercise your body, your brain also needs exercise. The use of gadgets makes your brain very lazy. Technology weakens cognitive abilities; it limits you and reduces your reasoning capacity. Instead of you using the auto-correct on your phone, why don’t you use your brain to write it correctly. Why looking for a calculator when you can use your brain to do the math. Solving mathematics without calculator makes you more intelligent and accurate. It helps you to develop fastest and easiest ways to solve complex questions. Stop looking for shortcut, let your brain stress itself. Let it do the hard work, let it sharpen itself. This will make you more mentally sound.

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#5 Always read

The last on the list on how to make yourself more intelligent is to read always. Yes, successful people are known to be voracious readers. Successful leaders are known to love books a lot. When you read a lot, you get exposed. You acquire a lot of knowledge. You know a lot of things. 

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Read different subjects, articles, news, journals, read about nature, banking, hydrography, medicine, and ocean. Read about things that concern you and don’t concern you. These things get you prepared. You tend to know something about everything. You won’t be dumb at discussions. You will always have an idea.

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You can download the audio of these article here How to increase your Intelligence

All these things are practicable and are known to work anywhere. If you need any help concerning this, you can reach me on [email protected]. I will be willing to help, most especially students. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to share with your friends.