Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Crash Test Dummies

Every year there's at least one of these goofy-ass looks at how the Wonderlic test affects NFL draft prospects.

Look, if you told me I had to take the SAT cold tomorrow morning, I wouldn't come close to getting the 1270 I got in high school. If, however, you gave me a few weeks to study and take some practice tests and such, I might surpass that score.

Ryan Clady knew this Wonderlic test was coming. He had plenty of time to take practice tests and get himself ready. That 13 indicates that he did not put in the necessary study time. If he didn't study for this, what else won't he study for?


You know, I not only didn't study for my SAT, I refused to study for it. Can't really explain why, something along the line that studying is for pussies. And I was pretty hungover when I actually took the test. I got a 1300, fourth-highest in my school, sixty points from the top score in the school. So much for studying; the three guys who scored above me studied for fucking months, and they were all pretty damned smart to begin with.

And there are plenty of sites where you can take the Wonderlic, which is also used as a corporate evaluation tool. I decided to see what all the hoo-ha was about some time ago, and got a 42 (out of a possible 50). Not terribly difficult. Suck on that, Dan Marino!

And yet. Forgetting that the Wonderlic, being a logic test (essentially a poor man's IQ test, which themselves are no great shakes), cannot by definition be truly "studied" for the way conventional tests can, the fact is that these tests do not sufficiently measure a person's ability to throw or carry an oblong pleather ball downfield, nor block nor tackle.

The best way to test a person's ability to do those things is to -- bear with me here -- put them on the field and have them do those things. It's not that complicated. I know a lot about football, and I can sport the test scores, and I'm not a small guy. But there was never a time where I would have been anything but useless on a football field. I just don't have the knack for it.

Tests in general are overrated; people are either test-takers or they're not. Spelling bees are a prime example of this syndrome. Bad spelling is an annoyance, to be sure, but spelling in and of itself is not a terribly marketable skill. This is not a sour-grapes thing; I was a two-time California state finalist, and three-time regional champion. It's just that it is a correlative rather than causative skill. There are plenty of very intelligent people who can't spell for shit.

Same with the Wonderlic. Offensive linemen (centers in particular), believe it or not, are generally the most intelligent people on a football team. But football intelligence is not the same as the associative and spatial intelligence sought out in conventional IQ tests.

And still, twenty years out of school, I say the same thing -- studying is for sucks. Either you know the material or you don't; either you read what you were supposed to read or you didn't. The idea that cramming is some sort of substitute for actual understanding of the material is itself a cheat.

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