Assignment for “What Is Intelligence, Anyway” PDF

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“What Is Intelligence, Anyway” Read the Instructions for Reading Comprehension Assignments before completing this assignment. Type directly on this document. Then upload the entire document (Word Doc) into the Canvas assignment. Type your name an ID# on the paper. Bhavpreet Singh 1291491

Vocabulary (There are 10 words. (10 pts)) 1. Aptitude(noun) - Nina had a high aptitude compared to her classmates as she scored high in her tests. 2. Complacent(adjective) - One can never be entirely complacent about their knowledge of the world. 3. Hastened(Verb) - Rob’s brother got injured, so we have hastened him to a nearby hospital. 4. Vitals(noun) - The doctor checked jack's vitals before operating on him for safety purposes. 5. Pronouncements(noun) - Many people don't trust the pronouncements made by politicians. 6. Devised(verb) - A group of friends devised a heist to rob the fridge in the middle of the night when they were having a night stay. 7. Moron(noun) - By doing a crazy stupid thing in school, Joseph proved him to be a moron. 8. Intricate(adjective) - In the first math class, we tried to solve an intricate problem.

9. Arbiter(noun) - Mughals and Afghans in the 15th century, fought each other to become the arbiter of the old India. 10. Uneasy(adjective) - Many people have an uneasy feeling in close space, which is called claustrophobia.

Summary (30 pts) In "what is Intelligence?" by Isaac Asimov, the author has tried to bring out the definition of intelligence and aptitude tests in a very subtle way. He has shown the correlation of intelligence with smartness. The author shared his life experiences to illustrate the shortcomings in the aptitude tests and hints that these are not the exact measure of intelligence. He states that he has performed much better in the aptitude tests because tests are formulated by people with intellectual bent similar to him. He bluntly brings out that he will nearly cut the sorry figure in the test if the tests were devised by the mechanics, farmers, or anyone except an academician. Finally, he quotes a joke by his mechanic to exemplify that the existing aptitude tests are not all-inclusive and do not result in smartness, offering him to be a subject to the idea he feels strongly about, and he leaves the reader to ponder about the same.

Reading Comprehension Questions “What Is Intelligence, Anyway”

(60 pts)

1. Does the author think he’s smart? Explain in your own words with examples from the reading. Ans- The author achieved a much better score in aptitude tests, and he gives the example of his army days when he scored 160 against an average of 100, and for a couple of hours, everyone was discussing it

as no one has achieved these scores before him. Yes, he thinks that he's smart as he knows how to answer questions designed by people with a similar intellectual bent. 2. Why does the author think that he would get a low score on an intelligence test written by his mechanic? Ans - The author thinks that he won't fare well if mechanics design the aptitude test as their intellectual bent is different from the author's academic background, and he is not proficient in the work done by the mechanics. He substantiates this by giving the example of when his car went wrong, and the mechanic explored and mended it, about which he was mostly clueless. 3. What does the author mean by "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart" in the second to last paragraph. Explain in your own words. Ans- The author uses the mechanic's this phrase because he thinks that the author is so compartmentalized into his profession and academic bent of mind, and it was difficult for the author to analyze the situation and think out of the box at an immediate instant to answer his joke. This incident leaves the author in uneasiness, and it corresponds to his point in one of the paras before when he states his intelligence is not absolute but is a function of the society he lives in....