On a scale of one to ten, how smart do you think you are? What do you use as a basis of this measurement?

Before you try to figure that out, I’d like you to know one thing — while there are many tests that determine a person’s IQ or intelligence quotient, in other words reasoning ability, there are no fixed criteria available that need to be met in order for you to believe that you are intelligent. With that in mind, it’s quite impossible to go ahead with the rating process.

We do end up comparing our own level of intelligence with somebody else’s, but a deeper look often shows that people’s level of success at things and life in general, do not always align with their presumed intelligence. The main reason for this is that good grades are wrongly associated with intelligence and these are two completely different things.

Making this mistake, we tend to judge a person and make assumptions about their intelligence on the basis of how many marks they have got. What we are forgetting is that we all have our individual differences that set us apart and our learning abilities vary.

Can you tell how those A-grade students got their grade? They either must have learnt the concepts well or they scored well because they are born intelligent. It hardly makes sense to use just one scale to measure everybody’s level of intelligence, and that also through grades because anyone can be either better or worse than anybody else at mugging up facts.

The only person you should be comparing yourself to is yourself. You shouldn’t be by counting how many As your friends have received in their final exams. Learning from your own mistakes and moving on is the right formula towards success.

Creativity is just intelligence having fun — Albert Einstein

Stereotypically, people who are able to solve crazy math equations that boggle the average mind, or those who wear goofy glasses and study day and night might impress us because they appear so intelligent. Someone who scores amazing grades in difficult subjects such as physics, or someone whose simply picked more than the minimum number of subjects in A Level sounds like someone with a promising future, don’t they?

On the other hand, people who don’t study till the last few days before exams, or those who don’t find algebraic equations or Newton’s Laws of Motion an easy cup of tea, are generally thought of as less intelligent.

Let me just tell you, in case you didn’t know, people like Einstein and Thomas Hardy were school dropouts. They were complete failures, but nobody thinks they weren’t intelligent. Those school dropouts grew up to accomplish so much and amaze the world with their contributions, and these are just two out of many examples.

Did you know that Princess Diana failed her O Level twice? It doesn’t even matter because she grew up to be so successful in life and accomplished much through her charity and awareness work.

That white sheet of paper with alphabets ranging from A to U doesn’t represent your intelligence. The general perception of our society that good students are smarter than those who struggle is quite wrong, and it has proven to be the case in countless instances. Nobody knows the potential each individual holds inside them, and so it isn’t right to judge people on their performance in exams.

Every individual is unique, with different qualities, strengths and weaknesses, talents and interests, and different perceptions of life. A comparison is absolutely invalid as there is no standardised definition of an intelligent person. Exams only test what students have learnt, not what they’re talented in, nor what their interests are. If the latter two were to be given priority, every student would have a different set of questions and everybody would be scoring full marks, that too because there will be no criteria or a marking scheme to operationalise correct answers.

If someone tells you they are studying fine art or humanities, you’d immediately presume they’re not so intelligent which is why they have not taken science subjects. Fine art requires skill and a lot of hard work goes into developing that. Maybe that person is not as intelligent in the areas that you are, but is better in other skills that you can’t excel in. There’s no comparison, is there?

I love to write and I’m working hard at honing my writing skills, but I didn’t achieve high grades in science subjects. Does that make me less smart?

I don’t think so. I never underestimate or compare myself. It doesn’t matter how many As my best friend got, or the 100 percent scholarship in college my cousin achieved.

In an attempt to clarify the confusion, let me explain the difference between intelligence and talent. Intelligence is to do with your IQ level, but talent has no unit of measurement. If you don’t know what you’re good at yet, that just means you’ve not yet focused on finding your strength. It’s not that you’re less intelligent than anyone else.

Everybody has a talent and whatever it is, by no means is it the only thing that determines how smart you are. Scoring good grades should be your goal at this point in your life, but remember that grades are not the baseline to determine how successful you are going to be in the future.

In a study conducted by Simon Baron Cohen, a clinical psychologist, it was inferred that there are three common brain types -- one with a high EQ (empathising quotient), a high SQ (systemising quotient) and a balanced brain. Females tend to have a high EQ, which is probably one of the reasons why most girls score well in humanities subjects, and males tend to have a high SQ, which is why, as per psychological findings and evidence, they score well in subjects such as maths.

The E-S theory has been tested using the Empathising Quotient and the Systemising Quotient and E-S profiles show that E>S is more common in females than in males, and S>E is more common in males. This difference shows that gender is one of the many differentiating factors between people, and both boys and girls have their own strengths, but none of this can measure their IQ level, nor determine how successful they will be in life.

The bottom line is that no one is smarter than anyone else, and we are all equal, despite our differences and, of course, our grades. You are born with intelligence, while smartness is to use the attributes you are born with in the best way possible.

So never judge your or anyone else’s smartness or intelligence based on just one aspect as it will be a biased perception that will not be based on the person’s full potentials.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 12th, 2019