Took the SAT in spring of 1975 and got a 1400, evenly split between both sections. It was a pretty good score at the time.
I was asked to apply for a graduate assistantship in fall of 1978. I could take the GRE or the MAT (Miller Analogies Test). The MAT was cheaper and didn't interfere with my work schedule so I took it.
It was a 100 question test, multiple choice, four answers per question (choose one), earning one point per question. I got an 87, which I thought was fair but not particularly good. However, it turns out that the average score was a 25 at the time. An 87 was well within the top 2%. There was a mini-scandal on the usage of the MAT to get into graduate school because the required score to get into the education department was a 24. When it was pointed out that a monkey trained to mark "C" would, statistically, get a 25, the education department raised the required score to a 26. It now took a slightly lucky monkey to get in.
Some years later (circa 1990) I ended up taking the GRE. I've forgotten the score I got but it was a good one.
I'm not particularly smart. I just did the work I was assigned to the best of my ability. I like to learn. I also read a lot - a whole lot and on a wide variety of topics. I make a conscious point to check all knowledge I have to see if it's relevant to all problems. I don't put my knowledge into separate silos and only consult just one silo to find an answer. So I don't think I've done well because I'm brilliant, I've done well because I'm average and I really apply myself. If you really apply yourself you can appear to be brilliant to people who haven't taken the trouble to master event he simplest portions of their profession.
Are Americans allowed to refer to themselves as smart?
Sure.
I'm
effectively smart. In my professional field of endeavor, I was
effectively damn smart.
I'm not smart because I was born smart. I'm on the higher end of the average range. I'm smart because I did the work.
American school systems repeat themselves. Boring as hell. In the higher grades they would add more material, but they frequently started with the assumption that you didn't know a damn thing. And because I actually did the work to learn instead of did the work to pass the test and then promptly forget it, I retained much of the knowledge. So when the material was covered yet again, I already knew a lot of it. I could focus on the 20% I didn't know instead of having to learn the 80% we had been taught earlier.
The old saying, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." I've met plenty of people who were born way smarter than I was. If those folks did the work, no way in hell I could keep up with them. But I could do better than a lot of born smart folks who didn't do the work to excel. And I could run rings around average folks who barely applied themselves.
I got into my professional field by accident. I needed a job really bad and the guy who hired me needed a hard worker who would work for very little. It was a major recession in the small town I had moved to, the kind of small town where your great-great-great-great-grandkids might (sometimes) be considered a native of the town. So it was hard to find a job. I took what I could get and it didn't pay well at all. Looked like it would be a great career so I started reading. The store I worked in sold personal computers (which was my job). Didn't know a damn thing about them when I started. They also sold books and magazines, so I read them when customers weren't around. I learned to program a bit. I signed up for computer book clubs, the kind where you get a bunch of books for a few dollars, buy a few, then get bonus books if you sign someone else up for the club. It wasn't like libraries had much on the topic way back then. Ours certainly didn't! When I finished reading the books I would sign up my wife. When I finished those books I signed up my daughter. When I finished those books I signed up my son. Then my cat. Then my other cat. I practiced at home. I read at lunch. I went to user group meetings and learned from those presentations. I started doing presentations and writing articles. I started meeting smart, hard-working folks and would trade ideas with them.
The end result of all that human capital was a darn good paycheck and a well-earned reputation for being able to do hard stuff quickly and correctly.
If you work at it on a consistent basis over a number of years, you can effectively become damn smart.
It's kind of like our stash. You can start at -$50k, $0k, or $50k. Your starting point will make a big difference for awhile, but if you get a high enough savings rate, that starting advantage quickly becomes overwhelmed by your savings and investment earnings.
