Disclaimer: what this test can and cannot tell you

This translation is provided for convenience. In case of discrepancy, the German version prevails.

We tell you here what this test does and what it does not do. Not in small print and not in legal German, but in a way that lets you judge it before you buy.

This is not a legal safety net built at your expense. A test that stays silent about its own limits is a bad test.

What you get

Kognita puts 30 tasks from five areas in front of you. You need about 25 minutes for them. From your answers we calculate a value on the usual IQ scale with a mean of 100, together with a classification, a profile across the five areas, and a range within which your true value most probably lies.

That is an orientation value. It tells you roughly where you stand on this kind of task, compared with other people who have worked through the same tasks.

It is no more than that. And no less: for an honest self-assessment, an orientation value is usable. You only have to know that it is one.

What you do not get

The report is expressly not a clinical expert opinion. In particular, that makes it unsuitable as a basis for:

• Placement decisions at school. Not for the transition to upper secondary, not for the Gymiprüfung, not for special schooling, not for a Nachteilsausgleich (the adjustments a school can grant for an exam, such as extra time) and not for placement in a support class.
• Staffing decisions. Not for an application, not for a selection, not for a promotion, not for an aptitude judgement. An employer who asks for proof of aptitude with an application means procedures such as Multicheck, Stellwerk or Basic Check, not this test.
• Establishing high intellectual ability. Not even as a preliminary step or an indication towards a school, an authority or an association. Mensa Schweiz and comparable organisations recognise only their own procedures or procedures they have approved.
• Anything to do with health. The test makes no statement about your state of health. It is not intended to detect, monitor, predict or treat states of health, and it is neither built nor tested for that. If you suspect that persistent difficulties have more behind them than a bad day, that belongs with a qualified professional and not in an online test.
• Legal or official proceedings. It is no good as evidence and no good as an expert opinion.

If anyone tells you that an online test of 25 minutes can do one of these things, that is not true.

What this means inside the Swiss system

If you have arrived in Switzerland recently, it is worth spelling out where a result from this test can be handed in. The short answer is: nowhere that counts.

Not to a school for a place at the Gymnasium, the selective academic upper secondary school that leads to the Matura, the leaving certificate that gives direct access to Swiss universities. Entry runs either through the Gymiprüfung, the entrance exam sat at the end of primary school or of lower secondary school, or through school marks and a recommendation. Education is a cantonal matter and Switzerland has 26 cantons, so which route applies depends on where you live. A printout from an online test plays no part in either one.

Not to a company hiring an apprentice. An apprenticeship, in German a Lehre, is the vocational route that most Swiss school leavers take: three or four years (EFZ) or two years (EBA) of paid work in a training company combined with school, leading into a protected profession and, through the Berufsmaturität, on to a university of applied sciences. It is not a fallback for weaker pupils, and it is probably the biggest difference from the system you grew up in. A company that asks an applicant for an aptitude test means Multicheck or Basic Check, taken under supervision at a test centre, or Stellwerk, which the school itself administers.

Not to Mensa Schweiz, the Swiss branch of the high-IQ society. It admits members on the strength of its own supervised tests or a small number of procedures it recognises, and it states plainly that unsupervised tests and online tests are not accepted. That includes ours. We would rather write it here than let you discover it after paying.

An assessment that counts is carried out by a person, under supervision, with a procedure that has a proper norm behind it. In Switzerland that means the Schulpsychologischer Dienst, the cantonal school psychology service, which assesses pupils free of charge, or a psychologist in private practice. IQ tests may only be administered by people holding a recognised psychology degree, which is also why we do not offer one that would count.

Why a short test can do less

There is nothing mysterious behind this. There are four plain reasons.

The length. A full procedure consists of considerably more tasks and takes one to two hours. The more tasks, the more precise the measurement. With 30 tasks the measurement error is noticeable. That is why we always report a range and not just a single number.

The conditions. A procedure carried out by a qualified professional takes place in a quiet room, under supervision, with standardised instructions. With us you are sitting somewhere, perhaps with the phone in your hand, perhaps tired, perhaps interrupted. Nobody checks whether you look something up, and nobody notices when you take the test for the third time.

The norm. A result on the IQ scale is always a comparison with a reference group. Our reference distribution is a provisional one, not a representative norm sample of the Swiss population. People who take part here are not selected at random: they are people who went looking for an IQ test of their own accord. That group is not the average.

The breadth. We measure five areas of reasoning. Intelligence covers more than that, among other things working memory, processing speed, verbal knowledge and how someone handles new situations in everyday life. What we do not measure does not appear in the result, neither in your favour nor against you.

What can make your result vary

If you take the test twice and see two different numbers, that is not a fault. It is normal. These are the most common reasons:

• Daily form. Sleep, stress, hunger, a headache, last night’s wine.
• Time of day. Many people think measurably more slowly late in the evening.
• Interruptions. A phone call, a child in the room, a notification at the wrong moment.
• Device and display. Figural tasks on a small phone display are harder to take in than on a large monitor.
• Practice. Anyone who knows these types of task has an advantage. On a second run the value often rises without anything about the person having changed.
• The selection. Each test form contains a different set of tasks. Some will suit you better than others.
• Time pressure. Working briskly gets you further. Working thoroughly produces fewer mistakes. The two strategies lead to different values.
• Guessing. On multiple-choice tasks you sometimes hit the right answer by luck. Across 30 tasks that does not fully even out.
• Language. The verbal tasks are in English. Anyone who speaks English as a second language is underestimated there.
• Health. Medication, exhaustion, poor eyesight or an out-of-date pair of glasses all have an effect.

That is why your report contains a range and not just a number. The range is the more honest statement. A single number suggests a precision that no short test has.

And that is why a single result that surprises you is, to begin with, nothing more than a single result.

What the result does not say about you

An IQ value measures performance on a particular kind of thinking task. It says nothing about your worth as a person, your judgement, your curiosity, your persistence, your capacity for relationships, your practical or artistic skill, and nothing about whether you are good at your job.

Nor does it say anything about what you can achieve. The connection between test values and what becomes of a life is loose. Many other things count for more.

If your result turns out lower than you had hoped, that changes nothing about you. You are the person you were before. If it turns out higher than expected, the same applies.

Signs that a professional assessment could be worthwhile

Go to a qualified professional if one of the following statements applies to you:

• You need a result that carries weight with a school, an office, an employer or a court.
• A child is involved and a decision about that child’s schooling is at stake.
• You suspect that persistent difficulties at school, in training or at work have a cause that should be looked into.
• You notice a change in mental performance in yourself or in someone close to you.
• Your result is weighing on you.

These are the places for that:

• The Schulpsychologischer Dienst of your canton. Responsible for children and young people. The assessment is usually free of charge or heavily subsidised. Responsibility and procedure are regulated at cantonal level; the application usually goes through the school or directly to the cantonal office.
• Psychologists holding the FSP specialist title. The Federation of Swiss Psychologists keeps a public register. Look for the specialist title, not merely for the word psychologist.
• Your GP, if a health background may be involved. The referral runs from there, and depending on the case health insurance covers it.

We have nothing to do with any of these places and earn nothing when you go to them. We name them because they are the right address once the matter turns serious.

Liability

You use the test and the report on your own responsibility. We are not liable for decisions that you or third parties base on the result.

Liability for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence remains in place. Under Swiss law it cannot be excluded by agreement, and we do not try to. The details are in clause 10 of the terms.

Why we write this out at such length

Because openness is the better business here.

People looking for an IQ test are often in a vulnerable position. It may be about a child who is struggling at school. About a job application. About an old question someone has been carrying around about themselves. Selling a short test as an expert opinion in that situation would be easy, and wrong.

A test whose limits you know is more useful than one that pretends it has none. Take our result for what it is: a point of reference. If you need more, we have written down above where to get it.

If, after reading this page, you conclude that the report is of no use to you, do not buy it. If you have already bought it and reach the same conclusion, read Refunds.

One point for anyone used to consumer law elsewhere: Swiss law gives no statutory right of withdrawal for online orders. There is no cooling-off period here that you could invoke, because the Code of Obligations lists the situations in which a contract can be revoked and buying on a website is not among them. The 14 days we offer are a voluntary commitment. It is binding on us because we have written it down, but it is not an entitlement you hold by law, and no EU or UK withdrawal notice applies to this purchase. We will not hold the decision against you either way.