智慧：有什么线索能看出一个人的智商水平

What is the biggest clue to seeing someone’s level of intelligence?Eric Leow Yu Quan, studied at Raffles InstitutionPerhaps that one time when I went to a conference and listened to numerous presentations on the emergence of the sharing economy - with the influx of Grabhitch, Airbnb and the likes - until one speaker caught my attention.This speaker was clearly an expert in this domain, similar to all the other speakers, but I felt that I could understand him much better than the rest.He was much more concise, and made deliberate attempts to shun away from technical jargon while maintaining the cogency of his presentation.He explained the most complex ideas with the simplest words, the most logical progressions that helped an amateur like me begin grasping the nuances of the whole concept, without much prior knowledge.Evidently, the least intelligent person will ramble and confuse you with big “buzzwords”, that are meaningless on their own but give you the impression that they know their stuff, even though they don’t necessarily do. The smartest person knows how to synthesize every small detail into a coherent picture, and able to elucidate with clarity by using layman terms. He doesn’t simply quote buzzwords; instead, he leads you on to the idea behind each buzzword, allowing you to fully grasp the concept in its entirety.If you’re not convinced, then try this small exercise. Choose an area of your own expertise. For instance, I choose pharmacokinetics. Now, try to explain the key ideas of this area to primary school students. It’s actually harder than you think, because you have to keep in mind their limited experience, knowledge and worldview. You then have to use concepts that they learn in primary school, and try to extend it to incorporate bits and pieces of your area of expertise, while maintaining that flow in logic to keep them convinced. Chances are, the more well-read you are in this area of expertise, the better you are in explaining in simpler terms - sounds pretty ironic, but it’s not the complexity of the jargon that’s the problem, it’s the stringent requirement that you actually must know how each jargon is linked to the big picture that makes it so difficult to accomplish.Thus, if you want to see how intelligent someone is, choose an area that has been proclaimed to be “their expertise”, and ask them to explain it to you. If they speak in a rather convoluted manner while reciting textbook explanations and keywords, it’s time to be skeptical.