Kavita is a counsellor in a government school in a Jharkhand village. A private agency gave the Class 6 pupils a reasoning test bought from abroad and translated into Hindi. Its items asked about escalators, credit cards, snowfall and supermarket shelves, and each child's score was compared with figures from children of that country. Most pupils scored far below those figures. One of them, Birsa, keeps the accounts of his mother's vegetable stall in his head and built a bamboo water-wheel for the school garden. After the results, the principal seated the low scorers on separate benches, and several families stopped paying for their extra tuition, saying it would be wasted.
Kavita said that Birsa's skill with the stall accounts and the water-wheel would never show up in such a score. Which point about intelligence tests supports her?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Intelligence tests do not capture creative potentialities and the practical side of intelligence.
Option (1) Poor performance on a test may attach a stigma to children and adversely affect their self-respect. — Incorrect. Stigma is the mark a low score puts on a child, which then harms the child's performance and self-respect. It is a harm that follows the score.
Option (2) The tests may invite discriminating practices from parents, teachers and elders in the society. — Incorrect. Discriminating practices are unfair steps by parents, teachers and elders after a test, like the separate benches. They show how adults react to a score.
Option (3) Unless used by a trained investigator, intelligence tests may be misused intentionally or unintentionally. — Incorrect. This warns that a test can be misused when an untrained person gives or reads it. It is about the tester; even in trained hands the test would not measure Birsa's skills.
Option (4) Intelligence tests do not capture creative potentialities and the practical side of intelligence. — Correct. Birsa's mental sums at the stall show practical intelligence, and his water-wheel shows creative potential. Intelligence tests do not capture these, and they do not relate much to success in life. So his low score says little about what he can do.
NCERT (2026-27): “Some Misuses of Intelligence Tests “Poor performance on a test may attach a stigma to children and thereby adversely affect their performance and self-respect. The tests may invite discriminating practices from parents, teachers and elders in the society. Administering a test biased in favour of the middle class and higher class populations may underestimate the IQ of children coming from disadvantaged sections of the society. Intelligence tests do not capture creative potentialities and practical side of intelligence, and they also do not relate much to success in life. …” |