This is a review of the book “Match Wits With Mensa: The Complete Quiz Book”.
Date: July 25, 2021
Best place to buy: Amazon.com
Author: Martin Grossworth and the members of American Mensa, Ltd.
Price: $14.99
The ultimate book of Mensa-crafted puzzles, brainteasers, word games, number conundrums, and logical mysteries to test your intelligence.
This amazing set of test questions was originally designed to test the IQs of the most intelligent Americans (Mensa members, with an IQ of 140 and over). So you’ll be in good company if your scores should fall within their scores!
Puzzle fans have bought more than 650,000 copies of the Mensa Genius Quiz series-the only books that let readers “match wits with Mensa,” comparing how well they do against members of the famous high-IQ society. Here, in a giant omnibus edition, are four best-selling titles: The Mensa Genius Quiz Books 1 & 2, The Mensa Genius Quiz-A-Day Book, and The Mensa Genius ABC Book. Here are more than 800 fun mindbenders to exercise every part of your brain – word games, trivia, logic riddles, number challenges, visual puzzles-plus tips on how to improve your thinking skills. All the puzzles have been tested by members of American Mensa, Ltd., and include the percentage of Mensa testers who could solve each one, so that you can score yourself against some of the nation’s fittest mental athletes.
These will undoubtedly be the most difficult and complex problems having to do with IQ that you will ever have to solve.
You might also appreciate knowing that there is a brain game available for Apple and Android, by the title of “The American Mensa Brain test”. It’s published by Barnstorm Games. You can practice taking Mensa tests using that app.
WHAT IS MENSA:
Mensa was founded by Roland Berrill and Dr. L. L. Ware in 1961, for individuals whose score on any of a number of recognized standard IQ tests is in the upper 2 percent of the general population. The organization has 70,000 members worldwide, about 48,000 of whom belong to American Mensa.
THE CHAPTERS IN THIS BOOK:
Here is an idea of the Chapters present in “Match Wits With Mensa: The Complete Quiz Book”:
“The Mensa Genius Quiz Book 1”:
Are You A Secret Super Brain?
TRIVIA (Warm-Ups, A Question of Relativity, Match Wits with Mensa)
Vocabulary (Warm-Ups, In A Word, Match Wits with Mensa)
Analogies (Warm-Ups, Analyzing Analogies, Match Wits With Mensa)
Mathematics Reasoning, and Logic (Warm-Ups, The Mensa Diet, Adding It Up, Match Wits with Mensa)
Classics (Warm-Ups, Classic Conundrums, Match Wits with Mensa)
ANSWERS
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“The Mensa Genius Quiz Book 2”:
Are You A Genius?
Trivia (Warm-Ups, No Small Matter, Math Wits with Mensa)
Vocabulary (Warm-Ups, A Way with Words, Match Wits with Mensa)
Logic, Reasoning, and Mathematics (Warm-Ups, It’s Only Logical, Match Wits with Mensa)
Analogies (Warm-Ups, Look At It This Way, Match Wits with Mensa)
Culture (Warm-Ups, More Than Yogurt, Match Wits with Mensa)
EPILOGUE: TURN OF THE TABLE
ANSWERS
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The Mensa Genius Quiz-a-Day Book
To the Reader
What Is Mensa?
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
ANSWERS
————————————————————————————————————————–
The Mensa Genius A-B-C Quiz Book
Foreword
Introduction
The “Match Wits With Mensa” Panel
No-Pencil Quickies (Limericks, Flowery Movie Titles, Strange Questions, Abbreviations, Flowery Song Titles, INTERLUDE: Threesques)
Commoner Puzzles (Miscellany, Same-Size Words, Names and Places, INTERLUDE: Circle Words
Jargon (Math, Law, Business, Chemistry, Medicine, Music, Geography, Zoology, Politics, Clothing, INTERLUDE: What’s Next?)
Pencil-Optional Puzzles (Missing-Letter Scrambles, Letter Sequences, Vanity Telephone Numbers, Interludes: Word Makers
Grab Bag
Solutions
How To Join MENSA
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“A Word About IQ And What It Is And Is Not”:
An interesting chapter in the book
Close to 100 years ago, Alfred Binet devised a series of tests to help the French government select children for classes for the retarded. He set up a series of tests and devised a scale based on this. This is how the concept of IQ was developed.
The book states:
“In practice, however, there were many problems with this concept of IQ. The concept of intelligence, and how to measure it, is under severe criticism right now. … An IQ test does not measure drive, persistence, creativity, or any of the myriad other skills that often count for more in achieving success out of school”…. “Therefore, scores obtained on such tests should be viewed with some skepticism if they are low. They measure only one aspect of a total life pattern”.
Are You a Secret Super-Brain?
As stated in the book: “What is the real puzzle in this unique book? It may be somewhere beyond what you think you see in the mind-expanding, brain-sizzling, devilishly entertaining questions that fill these pages.
Actually, the real puzzle here lies in finding a clue or two to your own IQ. THE MENSA GENIUS QUIZ BOOK solves that puzzle by pitting you against people with IQs in the top two percent of the general population”.
TEST EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of the actual tests in this book (with their answers):
Logic, Reasoning and Mathematics (Warm-Ups)
Question No. 5:
Which of the lettered objects comes next in the following series:
Answer: B
Question No. 15: Which of the numbered figures best completes the following series?
Answer: II
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QUIZ A DAY BOOK:
January 2nd :
At my favorite fruitstand in Puzzleland, an orange costs 18 cents, a pineapple costs 27 cents, and a grape costs 15 cents. Using the same logic, can you tell how much a mango costs?
Answer: A mango costs 15 cents. The “logic” is 3 cents per letter (that’s the way the stores in Puzzleland operate).
May 28th
You are female. What relationship to you is your father’s only son-in-law’s mother-in-law’s only daughter?
Answer: Yourself
January 3rd
Even if you don’t like cats, you should be able to determine the following words. Each of these includes the word “CAT”. (Example: grape – musCAT)
Each of these words includes the letters “CAT”:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A catastrophe
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A robber who climbs walls
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A systematized list
Answer: Catastrophe, Cat-Burglar, Catalogue
PROS AND CONS
PROS:
These very difficult exercises are guaranteed to give your brain a real workout, which is always a goal of ours. They will definitely make you think “outside the box”.
CONS:
None that we could find.
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Match Wits with Mensa is an interesting concept. I know that we must embrace IQ numbers with a bit of skepticism. And that they are not all the spectrum of skills required to have success. But I do believe that having a high IQ can be very helpful. So, I will start by buying a copy of the Mensa Genius Quiz.
Thanks for your comment, Abel! I think you’ll enjoy the Mensa Genius Quiz. Interesting thing about that is that you will be comparing your score with Mensa members, who have an I.Q. of 140 or higher.