Penn State Clips vs. Wonderlic

We are currently looking into a career change involving an entreprenurial venture (the only kind of opportunity that interests us). The last part of the process was a battery of psychological profiles and an intelligence test. For the latter they chose the Wonderlic Personnel Test. Yes, the same test given to NFL Draft prospects...

Subscribe to Penn State Clips via Email

If you follow the NFL Draft at all, you know that the Wonderlic scores are the subject of many articles and endless debate.

A simplified and condensed version of the Wonderlic Test appears in newer editions of the Madden NFL video game series. The Madden version of the test plays a major role during the "Superstar" portion of the game, to add a deeper sense of realism to the game. The questions usually consist of basic math and English questions, like "If LaDainian Tomlinson rushes for 125 yards in a game, how many yards will he have at the end of the season if he keeps up with this pace?" or "Which is the most like the synonym of Brightness?" Players have four answers to choose from when taking the Wonderlic Test.

Not surprisingly, quarterbacks have the highest average Wonderlic score (27) among NFL players.

Here are some selected quarterback scores over the years...

• Drew Bledsoe: 37
• Tom Brady: 33
• Drew Brees: 28
• John Elway: 30
• Brett Favre: 22
• Jeff George: 10 (Pretty much what you're expect for a guy who was described as having "a million-dollar arm and a ten-cent head.")
• Chris Leak: 8
• Eli Manning: 39 (When asked about his score later, Manning replied "I think I got a 41 or a 42 out of 50.")
• Peyton Manning: 28
• Dan Marino: 16
• Donovan McNabb: 14
• Michael Oher: 19 (Not a quarterback, to be sure, but rather the protagonist of The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.)
• Chad Pennington: 25 (Pennington was once a finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship!)
• Alex Smith: 40
• Michael Vick: 20
• Steve Young: 33
• Vince Young: Allegedly got a 6, then retested and got a 15

So there we were, mano-a-testo. 50 questions in the booklet and a dozen minutes on the clock.

We got through 44 of the questions when time was called. We handed the test to the proctor and said, "40 or 41." When the score came back it was 41. This puts us in the 99.6 percentile. Put another way, if 1,000 people took this test, 996 of them could expect to score less than 41. This result did not surprise us, as we've had similar success on other standardized exams like the PSAT and SAT. We found the Wonderlic to be significantly easier than the Level I Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Exam that we sat for last month.

A rough conversion (60 + 2*Wonderlic) gives us an IQ of about 142. The generally accepted level for genius is an IQ of 140+. When we suggested putting Certified Genius® on our business cards, Mrs. Trader Kevin said geniuses do not miss garbage collection day, run out of gas, or forget their anniversary. We were forced to admit that we're not an intellectual giant like Crewcut Charlie Weis.

We believe that with proper exam prep, such as that received by NFL prospects, we could score 45+ on the test. If any readers have taken the Wonderlic test, use the comments section to tell us about your experience and post your score.

Kindle: Amazon's 6" Wireless Reading Device