Total vocabulary has a remarkably high
correlation (0.8-0.9) with IQ scores. There are several free tests
available on the Internet to gauge your total vocabulary. One
total-vocabulary test, the
WordSmart
Challenge, may
be downloaded from WordSmart. Their
Scoring
Chart.equates
a WordSmart score of 205 with a perfect score of 800 on the post-1995
recentered SAT, and assigns WordSmart scores of 209 to lawyers,
213 to college professors, 219 to editors, and 236 to major executives.
The Magus
test is also free. Another good total-vocabulary
test is
Tejay
Sener's 600-Word Vocabulary Test. Darryl
Miyaguchi has been good enough to point out that this 600-word
vocabulary test wasn't actually written by Tejay, but was taken
from another source ("The Joy of Lex", by Gyles
Brandreth, which Tejay quotes). So It's Tejay's test in the sense
that he has sponsored it and adapted it for the web. Thanks, Darryl.
And thanks, Tejay, for the test, which wouldn't be available to
us if it weren't for your efforts.
As anyone who's
tried it can attest, this test has a very high ceiling. At the
same time, there are enough questions on the test that it covers
a broad range of words. The top scorers on this test may be found
at:
Tejay
Sener's Great List of Literati.. I have provided the following
Definitions for the 600-Word Vocabulary Test, to
spare the test-taker the onus of checking the definitions in a
dictionary. A related vocabulary test which presents antonyms
and synonyms is
Peter
Schmies' Word Classification Test, which
can be taken online. A discussion of both these tests, including
a score-distribution histogram, an estimation of its standard
deviation, and a free dictionary/thesuarus containing the
10,000
Most Difficult Words is
discussed at:
Word-Classification-Test
Histogram and Standard Deviation.
Vocabulary tests
An
expanded discussion of the role of vocabulary in intelligence
measurement may be found at
the
role of vocabulary in IQ testing, together
with a discussion ofvocabulary
tests, measuring
the size of your vocabulary, and vocabulary
augmentation