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IQ What is your IQ, and is it important? This article alleviates your fear. IQ stands for "Intelligence Quotient" and is determined by taking an IQ test. It is supposed to represent your "intelligence," but as you see in this discussion, intelligence is much more than a measurement from a test. The common "IQ value" is obtained by taking the number of correctly answered questions in an IQ test and multiplying it by a "correction-value," - taking your age into account and the duration of the test. The final result is your "IQ Score" or "IQ." A value of "100" indicates an "average" person and applies to about 75% of the population. A score above "100" indicates an "above average person" and "below 100" is obvious. If you have ever done one of these tests, you will find they consist of unusual questions and/or diagrams that you will rarely encounter in everyday life. Diagrams such as boxes, squares and triangles with shading etc are required to be placed in a particular order or letters such as SMTWTFS need to be interpreted. If you have not seen these type of questions, you may have difficulty in producing answers. That's object of the test. It is designed to test your "intelligence" by solving a problem that is new to you. However, if you attempt a number of these tests, your score will improve as you will become aware of how to answer the questions. That's why some bright students obtain a high score. They are already aware of the type of questions in a test. Obviously this type of test is not accurate and no-one should put any emphasis on the result as the number of questions is too small to generate any meaningful result. I am not in favor of IQ tests or anything that tries to produce a value for "intelligence" but since the internet has a number of sites covering this topic, it is interesting to talk about it. Intelligence is something that is intrinsic and extremely complex. It is something you cannot put your finger on and includes many facets, features and capabilities of a person. A simple test cannot possibly produce an accurate result. Intelligence is a "life-long" creation of ability, how you handle your affairs and how you treat others as well as thousands of other entities. If "intelligence" could be assessed as making money, Bill Gates would be at the top. If it could be assessed as being a leader, George Bush would be a contender. If it could be assessed as being an inventor, Thomas Edison would be in the running. Clearly, "intelligence" is an indefinable attribute. There are lots of things in your life that make up intelligence. Attitude, capability, happiness, harmony and contentment are just a few. If you are interested in how you would score in an IQ test, here are some links: http://www.iqtest.com/ This is an Emode IQ test. It's free so don't pay for anything. http://www.testcafe.com/iqtest/ http://www.intelligencetest.com/test/signupuser.php http://www.2h.com/iq-tests.html This site offers about 20 different types of IQ tests. Once the fun of taking an IQ test
has been satisfied, I want to talk about REAL
INTELLIGENCE. THE COST OF A GAINING A QUALIFICATION The cost of education is enormous. Especially a tertiary qualification. It can cost more than you think. Two to four years of full-time study can take up to 15 years to repay! In some cases it may never be repaid. That's why you have to consider what you want or "how you want" to be educated and how much you want to pay. In some cases, education will be a goal to be achieved at any cost. In other cases you will have to weigh up the costs against the rewards. Who can work out the cost of an education? There are so many factors that the final cost is absolutely impossible to determine. The only way to look at it is to consider the SACRIFICE. How much time, energy and money are you prepared to put into getting the education you desire. Not only will the financial commitment be considerable, but it will consume up to 4 years of your life. Education is not merely the gaining of a degree. It's associating with educated people and it builds and improves your approach to everything. With an education, you will see everything in a different light. However, there are ways to go about it and ways to decide on the most-suitable qualification for your needs. This article will help you with the facts, many of which you may not be aware of. Don't get me wrong, I am not against education. It is the most important "asset" you will gain. Not only does it give you a feeling of fulfillment, self-esteem and pride but it changes you totally. And most important, others will recognize this. Education gives you a standing for the rest of your life and not a day will pass when you will not appreciate the work, effort and sacrifice you made. But before you go headlong into the first course that takes your fancy, there are a number of considerations and decisions you should make. MAKE SURE It is essential to make sure your qualification leads to a worthwhile career. Many courses go no-where. Either the market is closed (called a "closed-shop" or only open to special types of applicants - such as friends or ethnically-similar applicants to those controlling the intake) or vacancies do not exist in your area. This is something you should investigate before deciding on a particular course. To make sure a qualification leads to a career with a good salary, there are four factors you should be aware of: 1. What is the earnings potential of the qualification? 2. What is the travel-distance to work? 3. What is the demand for the qualification? (how many vacancies exist?) 4. What is the "life" of the qualification? (will it soon be "out of vogue?") It's a matter of economics. It is pointless studying for 4 years if the remuneration is little more than unqualified work. It's also pointless doing a 4-year course and ending up not finding a position. As a point to note, over 50% of university graduates cannot find employment in the field of their study. (It may be: "cannot find work" or "do not want to work" in the field - the end result is the same - over 50% do not work in the field of their qualification.) These are the cold, hard facts, so don't let this happen to you. Education is an enormous gamble, an enormous undertaking and an enormous expense. Because of this you should put a lot of thought into the decision. MANY TYPES OF QUALIFICATIONS A tertiary qualification need not be a masters, diploma or degree. It can be a trade certificate or even a short course. You will be amazed at the remuneration from these types of qualifications. If you compare the cost of gaining a qualification and the end-remuneration, a certificate course scores very high. It may not provide the prestige of "collar-and-tie employment" but it may be less frustrating, more-rewarding and more suitable for you. For instance, a position in the service industry can be very rewarding. You may love dogs, like to be around elderly citizens, enjoy wood working, landscaping, metal working, or things to do with your hands. An ability to work with your hands can provide you with a life-long income. Once you settle on the area you want to pursue and gain either a qualification or training, all you have to do is place an advertisement in the local paper and you will get a constant stream of enquiries. Our local kitchen renovator gets 4 times more enquiries than he can handle and yet he prefers to operate on his own. He carefully sorts out the highest paying jobs and works on a cash-only basis. You can imagine the profit he makes! The only tell-tail sign is the three houses he owns and a farm. "Service" can be in many forms but it generally boils down to two things. Providing "labor-only" or "product and labor." Service can be in the form of assistance (cleaning, dog-grooming designing, etc) or include a product, where you add or modify an item (called "value adding"), such as manufacture, repair, (TV's, microwave ovens, installation of antennas, satellite dishes, alarms, heaters, air conditioners, renovations, plumbing repairs, landscaping, brick-laying, fencing, flowers, hair-dressing, odd jobs etc. etc.) Some of these areas have a high cash turnover and this makes them extremely lucrative. You need to be fit, a self-starter and prepared to drive to each client. In these days of mobile phones, you can run your business while attending to each job so all you need is an advertisement in a local newspaper. Over a period of time you will gain a customer-base through previous customers and recommendations and your business will increase. I can site my own example on this. Recommendations and previous customers amounted to more than 50% of my business after I had been operating for about 1 year and they are the best to deal with. They trust you and you know payment is guaranteed. Monetary returns from running your own business can be up to 400% more than standard employment - not because you are over-charging your customer but because you are properly organized by specializing in a small number of areas and carry stock of replacement parts etc. Then there are the high-stress positions - lawyers, doctors, accountants, dentists. I have no intimate knowledge of these fields, except to say my accountant suffers from migraines, my dentist is afraid of transmitting the AIDS disease and my lawyer is petrified of appearing in court. If you are a self-starter and eager to venture into your own business, here are a number of pointers: The first thing is: If you do not have the desire to work for yourself, you will have to go though the tormentuous task of searching for a job. Sometimes this is a good way to get on-the-spot training and is a very clever way to get trained and be paid at the same time. If you know how to fill out forms and ask the correct questions during an interview, you don't need any additional advice. But for those new to this area, there are a number of things you need to be aware of . Just like buying a second-hand car or house, there are sharks out there that will eagerly take your money and trick you. It seems impossible that FRAUDSTERS operate in this area, but they do exist. When you are searching through newspapers or the web, for employment opportunities, you will come across a number of fraudulent advertisements. They will be hard to spot. They will be non-existent jobs or people that are really trying to sell you something. The biggest "con" will be offering you high wages that are simply designed to "suck you in." Once you answer this type of advert, you will be taken down a "payment path" to gain "privileged selection," "special attention" or some other form of deceit. The only way to avoid this is to do a lot of investigation. Don't fall for the first advertisement that looks enticing. Gather lots of facts and figures. Anything that falls outside the normal type of advertisement can be judged as "deception." The most important fact to remember is NEVER PAY FOR ANY SERVICES. This includes up-front fees of any type: application fees, re-location fees, deposits, filing fees or anything that will give you a better opportunity to secure a position. Honest employment agencies do not charge the employee any fees. Don't be tricked by statements such as "re-imbursement" or "guaranteed employment." Make sure you know the name of the company you are applying to. If the employment agency holds back the name, you can assume something is "fishy." Make sure you are not applying to a company that will use you for 4 weeks for a "rush job" then dump you. There is another trick: Many firms have a 4 week "trial period." They say they will "assess you" and make a decision. This can be a time to "use you" and "dump you" without any compensation. Especially during busy periods such as holidays. Some companies withhold wages or only part-pay because you did not "meet their strict requirements." This is not legal. These are some of the pitfalls for the "first-time employed" and you should do your homework before taking on any new career. Some employees are tricked into paying some form of service that will "guarantee" them a "better application" for a job that does not exist or is "commission-only" based. Commission-only employment is illegal in some countries. The problem with commission-only employment is it is very hard to achieve sales in the first few weeks to meet the targets required by this type of employment and quite often the aim is get you to sell to your family and friends to meet these targets. Don't be fooled into jobs where "you are the boss" or "work for yourself." If you are new to the employment field, this type of activity is very difficult to succeed in. It takes months, if not years, to get to a point where your income will be more than the cost of running the business. You need to get a position where you are helped, guided and monitored for a period of time, until you are able to operate on your own. Take time to look around the company you intend to work for and talk to the staff. Ask all sorts of questions to find out if they are happy with the terms of employment, the attitude of the rest of the staff and the way directives are delivered to them. WORK AT HOME Don't be tricked into applying for a "work at home" job. There are no "work at home" jobs that make "lots of money." You will see many fraudulent businesses advertised, like: Work at Home - invoicing doctors accounts, or delivery iInvoices or selling vitamins, or sea salt! or one of a number of similar activities. Everyone wants a job like this and if they did exist, people would be telling their friends and the jobs would be filled immediately. They would NEVER need to be advertised. Some of the largest assembly firms only advertise for new staff by putting a notice on the staff Notice Board. They have never spent a cent on advertising. They only employ friends and relatives of existing staff. They found the honesty and reliability of relatives to be much higher than introducing unknown employees. Always consider this one point: Why is the job being advertised? Why hasn't it been filled by friends of the employees? What does the job REALLY entail? BACK TO THE COURSES No matter if you want to work for yourself or be employed by a company, you will need some form of qualification or training. You need to work out if you can afford to get a qualification on a full-time basis or part time or wait until you find a job and match a qualification with the type of work you doing. You will find many institutions offer a wide range of courses - from short-courses to 4-year full-time degrees. The only way to approach this is to make a list of the areas you want to study or match the course with the employment. This will narrow the field enormously. The next step is to look into the course structure, the duration of the course and the cost. This becomes your starting point. If you find a suitable course, you are lucky. Many of the courses are purely theoretical or superficial and you end up with a "degree" that is hardly worth anything. Don't fall for one of these types of courses. Many courses must include practical-work, due to the practical nature of the course. If this is not provided, you can be certain the end-result will be almost worthless. Once you have the basic cost of the course, you need to add all sorts of costs such as car-costs (travel), meals, stationary, supplies, components etc. On top of this you have to add the cost of paying off the course. This can be from 5% to 25% per year in bank or credit-card fees. Now add the cost of non-employment for the duration of the course if you are doing full-time study. When all these are added up, you will get quite a shock. Once you have calmed down, you need to work out a method of payment and a duration. If the costs and time-frame are acceptable, the course should be undertaken. If the benefits are not realizable, it may be possible to take a short-course or a correspondence course. Don't be put off by the expenses of getting a qualification. The essential part is to keep your brain active. If you cannot take up a high-level course (for either technical or monetary reasons), try a certificate or short course. Even a short course will expose you to the educational system and provide you with information to keep your "gray-matter" active.
For now, |