Many years ago I was living at the weekends with my then girlfriend in Edinburgh. Said Girlfriend was 1.Parisian (NEVER French!) and 2 . Very VERY smart (God knows what she saw in me!) At some point she decided she’d try for MENSA ( the UK Club for Geniuses). To join MENSA you have to pass their own version of an IQ test under Examination Conditions. Prospective Members got a practice test book (this was the 80s) so they could practice. Girlfriend left her book of practice test questions in the living room so, while she was at work one evening and i was bored, i picked it up and tried to do the practice test…and failed miserably, apparently an IQ to match Mayarr’s. A couple of evenings later I had been drinking and was rather drunk (its a Scottish thing) and picked up that booklet again, choosing different ones from the first attempt and aced it! " half cut" or “even 2/3’s cut” I ended up with a score over the required 140 (I think?)…much to my Girlfriend’s disgust.
I agree. Their mothers got the best care during pregnancy. They had all the nutrition they needed for their bodies and brains to develop to their full potential. They had parents who gave them everything they needed including the motivation to become educated. In turn, they will likely be in a position to to provide the same for their descendants. Elites propagate elites.
This was very apparent in Feudal times. The sons of aristocrats grew up full bodied, educated, well trained in martial arts and well armed with expensive weaponry. Peasants were malnourished and defended themselves as best they could with sticks. A knight would have seemed almost to be a superior species. This advantage tends to propagate dynastically.
Obviously enormous natural ability. I think the point being made is that there others who could have done the same but did not get the resources needed to cultivate their talents.
I want to update you guys about “prodigy” Laurent Simons.
He stopped going to the university he went to. He was on the way to become the youngest bachelor graduate ever but the university couldn’t let him graduate soon enough. The parents wanted him to graduate before december 26 because then was Laurent’s birthday and he would turn 10 but the university didn’t think this was achievable. His parents were mad and now Laurent is looking to go to another university.
In my opinion, I am not so sure about Laurent’s prodigy status anymore. His parents seem to play a very significant role in his academic career. The only ones bothered by Laurent not becoming the youngest bachelor graduate ever were his parents. They said that they wanted Laurent to have a nice childhood and let him be a kid but then they complain about this. It doesn’t add up and other people in media and in general were sceptic too.
You say so, as if IQ is motionless, but it is not. From the very beginning of the IQ, Alfred Binet’s test was intended to measure the degree of mental development rather than innate intelligence. As I know, so far there is not a single test that would show exclusively your natural intelligence.
Any of the six that remain 
This post originally contained a story about how a junior high school in the 1960s mixed up students’ IQ scores with homeroom numbers. Those students were treated as exceptional, and they became exceptional students. [No source was provided, but if anyone knows more about this story, please comment below.]
That sounds interesting. If anyone knows the original source, I’d like to find out more about it.
While the exams are important, they’re only supposed to form a part of university life. You are supposed to attend class, form friendships, network and develop an interest and understanding in the subject apart from the exams. If he’s studying just specifically for the exams that’s vastly easier. In Europe you are not able to skip years like you can in the US, an accredited honours degree always lasts 4 years.
If he’s that exceptional, then why not do a distance course. He won’t be required to attend class then, just show up at the exams. Or why even bother getting a degree? Why not just make his own discoveries and publish papers? That would be the truest test of ability.
I’m pleasantly surprised at how mature and refined most people’s views on things like IQ are here. IQ is only useful as a crude way to split kids into different classes in school and is basically nonsense when applied to anything else. It’s bizarre how so many people are fooled by such a simplistic and obviously wrong concept.