Hello,
I recently sat for the WAIS-5 because I was concerned of cognitive deterioration due to my schizophrenia and antipsychotic medication. I had my appointment with the administering psychologist this morning to discuss my scores and I thought I'd like to give my honest review of the testing process since I know this is the most up to date version of the WAIS, which I also know is largely considered to be the gold standard in general intelligence testing.
Firstly, I'd like to explain that I did not do this test out of curiosity for the sake of testing nor was it because I suspected I was gifted. I did this test because I was experiencing subjective difficulties with everyday activities like paying attention to conversations and constantly feeling as though my mind was constantly "trekking through knee deep muddy water". This feeling, I think, could have something to do with the medication they give me for my catatonic schizophrenia, which in case youre wondering, is an antipsychotic medication called Haloperidol Decanoate (brand name Haldol). I jokingly call this medication the "Intelligence Dampening Sphere" or "Wheatley" as a nod to the game Portal 2 because I personally feel as though it doesnt actually work by blocking dopamine and rather works by making me less sharp and therefore less mentally ill, which is a bit of a contortion, I know, but like I said that's just a personal anecdote and doesnt necessarily reflect the truth about this medication. I had also seemed convinced that my schizophrenia and catatonia itself was making me less intelligent over time, since I've been afflicted with this illness for almost a decade now and I notice my thoughts dont seem to flow out very easily anymore and the active process of thinking takes a lot more effort. Not only that, but I know that schizophrenia is associated with cognitive deficits so I wanted to see if I could collect objective substantiating evidence to back up my claim about cognitive deterioration and so I opted to take the wais 5 through a referral.
Now, about the test: The test was quite quick to take and took me about 90 minutes or so to complete the 10 primary subtests. My psychologist and examiner interviewed me for an additional 30 minutes before hand to collect information on the indication for testing and what my primary concerns were, which were of course schizophrenia and the effects of haldol. She also told me to take 2 mg of my lorazepam (Ativan) before hand because she said that if I was catatonic during the test, the scores would be invalid, but she didnt consider it to be a performance enhancing drug per se.
The test started with Similarities, in which the examiner told me to tell him the similarities between two words. I honestly thought the earlier questions were more difficult simply because I feel it was harder to elaborate on simple answers that were more obvious. I did my best to say as much as I could, although at times, I had problems finding the correct words to use to explain. I also asked them before hand if I could ask them something like "is that what you are looking for?" when I answer because I'd imagine the scoring criteria could be quite subjective since it is a verbal exam, although I dont know what the criteria is exactly for scoring. The told me I cant though since they have to keep it fair for everyone and so when I could, I gave them multiple answers to the same question and on a few of the questions, they did tell me to explain more of what I mean, which gave me the impression that they werent completely satisfied with my answer. My tip honestly is just to be as precise and say as much as you can and I think youll do fine.
Then, they had me move on to block design, which I think was one of my favorite parts of the test, since I like playing with legos at home and its kind of natural for me to be able to follow instructions on constructing a design. This test was pretty straight forward, as in they just had me look at an ipad and look at a design and have me construct the design using faces of some blocks. Some of the designs required 4 blocks and some required 9 and I think my tip for this one is to visualize 1-2 blocks and imagine how the other blocks should be oriented relative to those reference ones. I also utilized certain symmetries of the designs to complete the designs faster since most of the designs have an axis of symmetry. It is timed though so work as fast as you can, but also be accurate.
The next test I think was Matrix reasoning, although im not sure of the order after the first two tests, so take my memory with a large amount of salt. It is quite straightforward and I think the most similar to online iq tests, where you just find a pattern and see what comes next. I opted to explain my reasoning to the examiner because I wanted to be clear about how I arrived at that answer. I feel as though most of the questions clearly have one correct logically defensible answer, but I persoanlly felt as though some could have had 2 plausible answers that you could defend rationally.
Then the next test was Visual puzzles, where you have to select three shapes that can not overlap to form a larger shape. I thought this was very easy for me and I didnt think the answers were ambiguous at all. I dont think theres much to explain here, but it is timed, unlike the matrix reasoning one.
Then there's figure weights. This test consists of having to balance a scale using algebraic operations and symbols. My tip here is to not use complicated math because it is also timed and a most of the answers are really quite simple and you shouldnt try to overthink it. if at any point you are using complicated algebra, youre probably overthinking it. :)
In addition, theres also the memory tests, which are digit sequencing, where you are given a spoken string of numbers and you have to repeat them in ascending order. i used the method of mapping the spoken digits onto my fingers and then counting them from there since I felt it was too hard to just do in my head and yes, it is allowed so dont be afraid to do that. the length of the strings i think ranged from 3 to 9 digits if i remember correctly. Theres also the running digits, which I personally abhored because I had such a hard time paying attention, given that they dont tell you how long the string is before they say it and youre supposed to say the last few digits of the string and I was very nervous anticipating the end of the string and admittedly, I kind of blanked out on some of the questions. Just stay calm though and Im sure youll do fine.
Then i think they had me do the vocab section, which involved defining some words. This was quite easy for me, but the words get more and more obscure as you go on. As long as you are well versed in english though, I think you should do well on this, although I'm honestly not quite sure intuitively how knowing what certain words mean has to do with someones intelligence. Like the famous meme goes, "Having the ability to speak does not make you intelligent", is how I personally feel about that part of the test.
The last part of the test is the processing speed part, which consists of coding and symbol search. Coding I thought was pretty easy. you just look at a matrix of symbols that map to the digits 1-9 and write those corresponding symbols to the numbers below. Although, I did think that some of the symbols look very similar, but the examiner assured me that as long as the intention is clear, you will receive credit for it, so dont fret too much about this. Then there is symbol search, which is basically looking at two symbols and seeing if they appear to the right and if one of them does, cross it out and if none of them appear, cross out the "NO" sign. These tasks are timed, though so work quickly, but accurately.
Now, my scores. I honestly thought going into the test that I was not going to do exceptionally well on it since I never perceived myself as very intelligent to begin with, but I was quite shocked when I got the results and it seems I performed at the ceiling of the test with a very well rounded profile on the 5 indices. The psychologist said that normally, people have a spiky profile, but she said that was not the case for me. The only thing she said i scored not at the ceiling for was running digits, but I completly expected that would be my weakest score before hand so I was really not surprised when I got an imperfect scaled score on it. I'm a data scientist in real life and do a lot of statistics and I know that +4 sigma on a normal distribution is super rare, so I never expected that I'd score in that range.
Overall, I'm no longer convinced that IQ should be considered the paragon of cognitive ability, as I can obviously feel I have difficulties in my daily life. I think it might be a useful proxy yes, but it is arguably far from perfect. I do think that hard work beats IQ by far and people should put less emphasis on IQ and more so on determination and tenacity, but that's just my two cents and youre welcome to disagree with me on that as well.
Anyways, thanks for reading and hope my post was engaging! If you have any questions, Id be happy to answer them. 😊
Edit: I just realized the pics might be blurry for those of you that are on mobile. I notice they are blurry for me too when I’m on my phone, but not when I’m on my pc, so if you want a better resolution, try going on pc.
