The effects of intelligence test preparation

The first goal of this study was to investigate the effects of reading a book concerning intelligence tests and the effects of a specific test‐training programme on numerical and verbal intelligence tests. The second goal was to investigate to what extent the acquisition of test‐specific problem‐solving strategies affects the ability to solve items on different, but comparable tests (transfer). In the experimental design two factors were included: practice (pretest or no pretest) and (level of) preparation (none, book, or training), so there were six conditions. Each condition consisted of about 26 subjects, who had been randomly assigned to one of the conditions. The results showed a strong effect of preparation, especially for the numerical intelligence test and to a lesser degree for the verbal intelligence test. No practice or pretest effects were found. Positive transfer was demonstrated for the numerical test. The results for the verbal test were less clear. The implications for the predictive and construct validity are discussed.