Melanie Reid
Click here for the IQ test questions (answers below)
Sixty years to the day that they sat down" />Download 'Too Hot', an exclusive Specials track from iTunes

Click here for the IQ test questions (answers below)
Sixty years to the day that they sat down at their primary school desks and dutifully took an IQ test, 1,100 pensioners gathered yesterday for a meeting that could change the way in which we all grow old.
The participants, all born in 1936 — and perhaps noisier and more full of laughter than they were in the classroom — learnt that they were to sit exactly the same test again. The results will show what impact lifestyle, diet, exercise and genetics have made on their IQ over a lifetime.
The Scottish pensioners will also be subjected to an array of biomedical tests, including brain scans focusing on the areas where the disconnections leading to dementia occur.
The project, entitled the Disconnected Mind, will run until 2015, retesting the same people as they pass through their 70s. This is the decade in which most brain degeneration starts. The research is expected to provide information about what factors influence mental decline and help to create preventative strategies for future generations.
Ian Deary, Professor of Differential Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, who is heading the £13.5 million project in partnership with the charity Help the Aged, said: “What the data allows us to do is take people with the same mental ability when they were young and find out how it ended up in different places in old age. We are hoping to put together a recipe for successful ageing.”
The project started in the early 1990s when Professor Deary and a colleague found, locked away in the dusty basement of the Scottish Council for Research in Education, the results of the 1932 and 1947 Mental Survey Tests.
The tests, which every 10 or 11-year-old Scottish child had to sit, were born out of the Government’s fear that the population was growing less intelligent. In fact, the opposite was proved to be the case, with the 1947 average showing an improvement of a couple of IQ points over the previous children.
When Professor Deary found the old data, he knew that he had a research goldmine on his hands. His team tracked down 1,100 of the 70,805 individuals who had sat down on June 4, 1947, to take the test. The pensioners begin the hard work next month, with the start of bio-medical testing.
Brain scans, together with lifestyle data and IQ scores 60 years apart, will allow scientists to discover how nerves become disconnected. Another area of interest is the blood/brain barrier: how the blood feeds the brain, and how detrimental chemicals can transfer. Data such as this will help the study of vascular dementia.
Preliminary results show that smoking may lower IQ results by two or three percentage points. There is also outline evidence showing that physical activity may delay brain ageing.
The difference in how age has an impact on individuals was evident at the meeting yesterday. Some participants bounced up the steps. Others came with sticks.
One youthful-looking candidate was Joan Troup, a retired pharmacist who lives in the Highlands. She walks, does yoga and swims. Until recently, she rode horses.
She said: “I always was keen on sport. An active mind is very important, too, and a good sense of humour. And friends. Omega 3 and laughter, I’d say.”
Sheila Macleod, a retired consultant anaesthetist and GP who sat the test in 1947 at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, emphasised the importance of diet. “I have never eaten processed food. We were the generation who cooked.”
Maureen Blackie, who was a school secretary in Edinburgh, said: “I walk a lot, most days, and I laugh a lot. I have grandchildren who keep me happy.”
Mike Foster, from Help the Aged, which is campaigning to raise the £13.5 million that it needs to fund the Disconnected Mind for the next eight years, said: “This is some of the most important research ever undertaken to determine the causes of mental decline.”
Answers
1 B
2 BCD (you should cross out the C)
3. Foot
4. animal
5. Irish
6. cleaning
7. X
8. 9
How to stay sharp over the years
— Puzzles such as Su Doku and crosswords can keep the brain 14 years younger among the over60s, according to research by Professor Ian Robertson of Trinity College, Dublin
— People who have a Mediterranean diet including olive oil (and, in moderation, red wine) are 68 per cent less likely to suffer Alzheimer’s disease than those who do not, scientists at the Columbia University Medical Centre, New York, have said
— Smoking, lack of exercise, high blood pressure and being overweight all increase the likelihood of dementia. A combination of these can increase the probability by up to 16 per cent, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm says
Source: Times database

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I was born in Scotland in 1936 and if I took this test I don't remember it ( Does that mean I've failed already ? ! )
In 1947 I attended Cramond school near Edinburgh.
I had them all correct except the bathbrick, no bathbricks in our house!
Andrew Gardiner, Sydney, Australia
I too had never heard of 'Bathbrick' but it was fairly easy to get the correct answer by eliminating three answers with a little bit of common sense and logic - just the sort of the thing that these tests should be assessing.
Also, I have to say that I love the answer for question 2 suggested by Jonny in Cambridge.
Iain, Basingstoke,
This was all very simple until I read A J Rutherford's comments.
Tom Marshall, Lichfield,
I thought it was dead easy and did it in a minute or two.
Showed it to my teenage son and we agreed it is heavily biassed in favour of one learning style. My learning style, evidently. The test was heavily text-based, even the solitary Maths question being wrapped up in a lot of words. Question 6 (the bathbrick) is heavily culture specific i.e. you wouldn't be able to answer it if you didn't come from a culture where bathbricks were common (which we don't). That was the only question I got wrong. The test seemed very limited in terms of what my son does at a leading secondary school, where they identify 7 learning styles and more than 90% come out with more than 5 GCSEs. You can't help thinking of the very able and clever children who would have failed this test because it totally ignores their sort of intelligence. Maths was poorly represented and science not at all.
Liz, Bristol, UK
Brian from Colorado wrote:
Write the word "Irish" somewhere in the brackets (you are told only to underline if the the question requests you answer by underlining, otherwise you are to write the answer in the brackets)
Not so, you are told: "Read each question carefully, and then answer it in the bracket, or by underlining, or as it tells you". The ORs make the choice up to the test taker.
I don't see where it says "you are told only to underline if the the question requests you"
Dave, Santa Cruz, Calif.,
Hair does not keep people warm - clothes do!!
Yvetta Outqwit, Scotland,
I actually took the 11+ in 1948 (aged 10) I passed. The school is still a Grammar School. I attended a re-union in April of this year.
The only two that could be said to have genuinely improved their lot (one boy and one girl) had both emigrated fairly shortly after leaving school.
One additional factor never mentioned is that all us boys were required to spend two years in the military, and that was indeed unsettling.
Incidentially the real "success" was an attractive girl, who made a even more attractive marriage.
As for me : I would put Victor Meldrum to shame.
PJW is quite correct, mine wasa small market town Grammar School. I later worked in London and became to realise just how much harder it was to get a place in such a school in a city.
PS But I did get all the correct answers fairly easily, though I doubt I have grown any wiser.
Peter Bolt, Redditch, UK
None of the suggested answers for (4) is correct. Clothes are not part of man, the way that fur is to animals. Man: hair = animal:fur.
John, Smiths, Bermuda
FYI-bathbrick is like pumice stone and was used to keep metal, particularly dinner table knives shining before the advent of modern methods in blade manufacture. In the kitchen it was kept in a box, usually suspended on the wall, and the knives were run over it.
Never thought I'd have use for that information.
Lizbet, Orillia, Canada
Obviously the test has not stood the test of time, the answer to question 1 would now in majority be: -blank- I gather.... (also to designate any answer to that question as "correct" would be very difficult.
On an other note I think that the way question 5 is set is very odd. The way it can be read (although the meaning is obvious) is that all three boys are English as well as Scottish and Irish.... (I am not a native English speaker so I may be wrong here)
Ronald van Raay, Utrecht, Netherlands
I found the same problem, as Eric (above), but then 'right clicked' on the 'test question' line, left clicked on 'open' - and the test appeared. I got all 8 questions correct in around 90 seconds. This amused me because I 'failed' the 11+ back in 1949. The 11+ was a good idea in principle, but terribly unfair on the many bright children who went to primary schools in catchment areas of small grammar schools. I can still recall my primary school head telling my mother and the parents of a classmate, that my pal and I had done well enough to go to the grammar school, but unfortunately only two pupils from our school had been allocated places - and we two were unlucky. (NB The lucky ones were the son of a staff member at the grammar school, and the niece of one of our school's senior teachers.) It was an early lesson in the unfairness of life and the value of having the right connections. Despite this early disappointment I later obtained two degrees and enjoyed a rewarding career.
PJW, Lincoln, UK
No wonder we lost an empire, given these questions its a mystery how we got where we are!
Soutanglie, Winston Salem, NC
I'm surprised I knew what a Bathbrick was. I read alot and think I picked it up some where along the line. I think it was interesting and answered all right except toe to foot, I put nail.. Have a Good Life!
Judy, Mingo Junction, Ohio
the last question doesn't make sense. how is 9 the answer?! i don't get it...
lanie, san mateo, ca
I think it's just you ;)
It isn't an actual IQ test in itself, which you can clearly see if you read the headers, 'APPENDIX II... PRELIMINARY PRACTICE TEST'
Justin, London,
My friend has the correct answers for you:
1. Leave it blank. While the obvious answer might be B, it is the wrong answer.
2. Write B C D in the bracket and cross out the C
3. The correct answer to the question is Foot, however the correct response is to underline nail as you are told, separate of the question, to underline the RIGHT word.
4. Write the name of a creature that wears fur in the brackets (you are told only to underline if the the question requests you answer by underlining, otherwise you are to write the answer in the brackets)
5. Write the word "Irish" somewhere in the brackets (you are told only to underline if the the question requests you answer by underlining, otherwise you are to write the answer in the brackets)
6. Underline the word "cleaning"
7. Write X in the brackets
8. Write "9" both in the equation itself and also in the bracket.
Thanks Aevum
Brian, Colorado,, USA
I was suprised the answer for (2) wasn't "and" with "n" crossed out!
Jonny, Cambridge,
I'm not sure how the "Bath Brick" question tests your intelligence....but then I would say that, as I got it wrong!!
Maybe ALL soap used to be called "bricks" in the 40's?
John Robinson, Thetford, UK
On the top of the article but below the graphics and the author, Melanie Reid, there is a link "Click here for the IW test questions". Do as the link says and you should get a pop up asking if you wish to download the pdf file.
Cam, London, UK
One problem with the answers, particularly number 7. Correct me if I'm wrong, but S comes AFTER Q. I mean unless the ALPHABET WRITTEN AT THE TOP is incorrect.
The correct answer is Z, not X.
AJ Rutherford, Enfield, Maine
I don't get this. Are we meant to be working out the questions for the answers? I couldn't make it England so I emmigrated to the Cayman Islands where IQ doesn't seem to matter.
chris johnson, George Town, Cayman Islands
Is it me, or is this an IQ test for chipmunks?
Robert Thé, London, UK
I can't see what this test has to do with IQ - and Question 6 just shows how dependent poorly constructed tests are on local culture - after all who nowadays has even heard of a bathbrick?
Richard Walton, Worcestershire,
The recipe for successful aging? I thought the success of aging is becoming dead at the end.
Roland, Budapest,
I find it interesting that the test expects you to agree to the following statement: "Do you understand that you must do your best and not ask questions?"
How times have changed.
pete, Bristol, England
My IQ obviously isn't very good. I can't even get the Test to come up. Unless of course the setters didn't set it up right. Perhaps we need a test for them too.
eric campbell, harrogate, uk