One of my favorite statistics is that 65% of people believe they have above-average intelligence. This fact makes those of us who internally believe that we are innately better than our peers stop and question whether this assumption is accurate. The first instinct of many may be to try in some way to prove that they truly are built differently, but aside from IQ tests which are difficult to obtain, the easiest way to test your true societal standing in my opinion is humanbenchmark.com.

This website tests its users on a variety of different tests ranging from reaction time to number memory, before showing where the testee stands in comparison to the rest of the population. There is nothing more devastating than finishing a test and realizing that you are in the bottom 5% of the population in terms of your reaction time or your verbal memory, and it is that pain that I intend to subject upon a variety of LHS students and parents.

To conduct this experience, I had each participant do each of the tests before averaging their scores and seeing where they placed compared to the rest of the population. To set some sort of standard, I decided to refresh my stats and test myself. I averaged 46.54%, meaning I was better than just around 47% of the population and was not in fact above average. My highest category was Sequence memory with 77.4%, and my lowest was aim trainer with 25.4%.

Adam Boyens is a senior who would consider himself of above-average intelligence. This belief, however, was shattered after just ten minutes on humanbenchmark.com. Boyens averaged 31.91% with his highest category being verbal memory with 70.0%, and his lowest being aim trainer with .05%, what an idiot. In his defense, Boyens said: “My head hurts cause I just got over a concussion.”

My next testee was sophomore Ella Hawks. When asked, Hawks said that she considered herself of below-average intelligence; she certainly did not lie. She averaged 16.98% with her highest score being 32.9% in reaction time, and her lowest score being 4.3% in Aim Trainer. When asked how she felt after taking the test, Hawks responded “About the same,” which makes sense considering her norm seems to be below average.

To test whether or not the poor results on this test are age dependent, I decided to test my senile 41-year-old mother, Rachael Meyerink. Despite believing herself to be of above average intelligence, she was quickly humbled. Meyerink averaged a 36.48% with her highest score being 90.9% in verbal memory and her lowest being 2.2% in visual memory. Ever the optimist, Meyerink said that she felt comforted about some results and… surprised by others.”

At the end of the day, I felt content knowing that everyone I had interviewed was placed lower than I by this evil test. Honestly, I’m okay with being considered above average among those who scored below average. The smartest idiot is a badge I will wear proudly. If you are looking for a ten-minute existential crisis or a place to waste hours trying to improve your scores by milliseconds, pay a visit to humanbenchmark.com: dissatisfaction guaranteed.