Higher IQ

[TheRealJoeFish]

As some of you may have noticed I've had other threads talking about intelligence, the malleability of it etc because I am geniunely interested in it, I'd prefer not have any comments about how I shouldn't worry about this, how I should think less about this and do my best etc. This thread is not because I want to compare myself. I'm simply interested in how brains work differently, what are the signs, in what way they are different etc.

Now to the question; are there any members here with an or any members who know someone with a higher IQ of >120? If so:
1) How did you fare academically?
2) How fast did you learn a new concept?
3) Did you have to study much outside of school?
4) What was difficult for you to learn and what wasn't?
5) How did it feel being around people that had it a bit more difficult to learn new concepts, remember things, solve problems etc
6) When you solve a problem in let's say mathematics (you can use another example) what is your approach and thought process when solving it?
7) How was your experience when learning a new language? Did it come to you easily?

Personally I believe someone with a higher IQ has a much better and much more efficient thought process combined with a more powerful subconscious (pattern recognition, memory and such is very important too).

Yes, I've been tested above 120.

Like Rob, I'll hide this because it's kind of long.

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1) In Kindergarten, I explained jet propulsion and caterpillar metamorphosis to my teacher in rather scientifically rigorous terms.  Apparently the school district had been considering moving me up a grade at the end of the year, but my kindergarten teacher told them to do it immediately, so I skipped into 1st grade about a month into the school year.  I learned later that, when I was in 4th grade, the district recommended to my parents that I move up again, but they declined, since I was already rather young and socially inept.  When I got to middle school, I took part in math competitions and placed among the top few in the state at my age level.  In high school, I took calculus as a freshman, and did lots of independent study/college work my junior and senior years.  Although I excelled at mathematics, I was pretty advanced in every subject.  As for my grades, well... they clearly lagged behind my ability.  I've just never been naturally motivated to do things like schoolwork, and I would often run a 99% average on tests and a 50% on homework.  I got a bunch of Cs and Ds in high school, and graduated just barely in the top half of my class (despite having the highest SAT in the school and such).  In undergrad, I studied mathematics, and continued to do competitions (which were far more difficult, though I still had what I considered good success on the Putnam exam).  I finished the math portion of my degree requirements in 5 semesters, at which point I realized that I *did not* want to do mathematics as a career (by my 5th semester, my GPA had dropped to about a B-, primarily because I was bored).  I got minors in creative writing and philosophy, and went to law school.  In my first year of law school, I convinced myself to give it one year - just one year - of actually putting in the work to try to achieve what I felt to be my maximum potential.  I did quite well (just outside top 5% in my class), transferred to a much better school (leaving behind a large scholarship but getting a great degree in the geographic area I wanted to live in), and ultimately finished law school with good-not-great grades.

2) I can pick up new abstract concepts with ease. 

3) Until law school, I did virtually no studying outside of school, because I found studying boring as hell and didn't care if I pulled Cs.  In law school, I studied quite a bit less than my classmates.  I would read the cases for the day's class on the bus on the way to school, and otherwise not do any extra work during the semester.  To study for the exam, I would take about 3 days and read the entire case book front-to-back, writing out notes and outlines on every single case we covered.  Essentially, for a 3 hour exam, I'd probably study about 30 hours over the course of the semester, with 20-25 of those hours being in the week before the exam.

4) It is very difficult for me to learn how to do things with my hands.  I have very little dexterity or agility working with objects, and so would be helpless with, say, a car engine.  For things like biological concepts, literary ideas, and, especially, mathematical concepts, I generally need to encounter them a single time to gain a fairly deep understanding of them.

5) I was always happy to help anyone who wanted it but I didn't care if other people didn't "get it."  I mean, the way I saw it, a C because you understood everything immediately but didn't put in any effort (that is, what I did) is less respectable than a C because you just couldn't figure it out despite trying really really hard.  I was generally aloof from all of that, because school always bored me. I was younger than all of my classmates, and already felt a little singled out because of that, so I just tried to be friendly to everyone.

6) A mathematics problem is sort of my specialty.  I'm at what I'd call, essentially, a "high non-genius" level. What I mean by that is this: some people, when you ask them a complex mathematics problem, know the answer immediately.  I call that person a genius.  I'm not that, but I'm just extremely fast at doing the steps, and I can keep track of a lot of numbers in my head at once.  For sort of a complex math problem, like a Putnam Exam problem, it's a matter of simplifying and analogizing, turning the information you have into information that's slightly more helpful, and then doing that over and over until you can massage the answer out of the numbers.

7) I would say I'm average at learning languages.  I have a very good memory, and can generally remember nouns quickly.  I have a lot more trouble with verbs.  (Wonder if that's normal.)  I only ever took formal classes in one language (other than English): French.  I can generally read French at, say, an adult basic level (like what you'd get in a newspaper, say), write a bit, and would be able to stumble through some speaking if I had to (one time I was in London, wearing shorts in the snow, and an elderly woman who spoke only French asked something like "vous etes froid, non?", and I was able to respond "un peu!").  I've been cycling through languages on Duolingo (if you don't know what that is, google it) and am currently learning Swedish (I have a handful of Swedish friends).  Something neat happened the other day - I was trying to think of a word for something and I thought of the Swedish word (halsduk) before the English word (scarf)! But I digress.  Decent at languages.

Perhaps also of note: my short-term memory is not particularly good but my long-term memory for facts and numbers is very good.  I am very good at trivia.  I am very into sports, and very interested in the numbers and advanced statistics.  Interestingly enough, I can remember statistic very well, but I can't remember anyone's jersey or uniform number; I almost feel like that's because my memory works differently for quantitative numbers vs. descriptive numbers.

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