Putting their genius to the test
Teens, adults aim for Mensa membership
BILLERICA - James Zhang, a 14-year-old from Needham, shuffles down a Billerica Memorial High School hallway with his father, John. The shy high school freshman is well-rested and has consumed a
"I want to take the Mensa test," he says softly, as he nervously shifts his weight from one Reebok sneaker to the other.
It is Mensa's annual national testing day, and Zhang is one of five people who will show up to this local test site with hopes of joining the 1,185 people in the Boston area who are already members of the prestigious organization that only admits people whose IQs are in the top 2 percent of the population. He may seem young too young to be Mensa material, but age isn't a factor - Mensa tests have been aced by genius 4-year-olds. Profession is also irrelevant. Scientists have failed the Mensa exam while truck drivers have passed.
Zhang, who heard about Mensa when he was at a Johns Hopkins University summer camp for gifted youth, believes membership in the elite organization will help him get even smarter.
"I'm planning on starting a puzzles club at my high school," he says. "I thought this would help."
It's 9:30 a.m., a half hour before test time, and proctor Susan Engelke has arrived to let everyone in. The local secretary of Mensa, she has been a member for 29 years. She teaches challenged adolescents here at Billerica High, and today her classroom smells like bleach. She explains that she scoured the desks in the room to rid them of profane graffiti before test day.
While laying out the registration forms and locating the No. 2 pencils, Engelke tells Zhang about the social aspects of Mensa, which he'll be able to take advantage of, assuming he gets in. There are parties with puzzles. The younger geniuses like to play Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution together, she says. Zhang smiles at this.
The next test taker to arrive is Chad Barraford, 25, of Allston, who read about Mensa in National Geographic and was inspired to take a practice test online. He scored so well that he thought it would be worth it to pay the $40 registration for the real exam.
Barraford is not your typical smarty pants. He claims he got an 850 (out of 1600) on his SATs before earning a 2.9 grade point average at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. But Barraford claims he thinks like a genius. His academic history may be mediocre, but when he was in college he spent his free time dissecting the process of cognitive decision making on marker boards in his room.
"It was a hobby," he says. Now he's starting his own software company.
Barraford admits he's surprised to see that the other Mensa hopeful in the room is Zhang, a teenager. He expected the other test takers to look like the guys on the show "Beauty and the Geek."
"You know," he says, "the kind of people who associate their identity with their intelligence."
With that, Barraford sees the next Mensa contestant, Chris LeBrun of Brighton, a 28-year-old project manager of an asset development company. LeBrun doesn't look like a "Beauty and the Geek" guy either. He's in track pants and a T-shirt and says he's here because he did well on an IQ test he took online when he was bored. Next thing he knew, he was looking into Mensa membership.
"I haven't been at a desk like this in quite some time," he says, attempting to squeeze into the small student seat.
Also finding her place at a bleached desk is Bethany King, 26, of Cambridge, a lab tech at Massachusetts General Hospital who has her Hebrew name - Tirzah - tattooed on her back.
"I was bored and looking for a challenge," she says.
Unlike Barraford, King excelled on the SATs with a 1510 and thinks that means she'll meet Mensa standards. "I'm good at filling in circles," she says, in an attempt at modesty.
Last to arrive is Amy Silva, a grinning 30-year-old from Revere who works for
After a final bathroom run, it begins. The first part of the exam is the Wonderlic Personnel Test, which is often used by human resources departments for hiring. There are 50 questions, but the group is told they probably won't get to all of them. It's like a 12-minute SAT. Part two is the real Mensa test, which has seven parts that range from matching pictures, to remembering the details of an essay, to basic math. The whole process takes about two hours, and everyone is silent except for stomach growls and the sound of graphite on paper. When it's over, the only person who claims to have finished the test in its entirety is Zhang. He says that when he didn't know an answer he guessed.
Engelke says she'll mail the answer sheets to Mensa headquarters. The results come back in three weeks, and test takers will receive a simple result of pass or fail. The results don't show a number score, so those who fail won't know how close they came to being a genius. Mensa will not disclose the minimum IQ required for membership anyway.
Silva jokes that no matter what she hears in three weeks she'll be disappointed.
"If you don't get in, you have to deal with the fact that you didn't get in," she said. "But if you do get in, you have to say, 'Why haven't I done more with my life if I'm so smart?' "
Meredith Goldstein can be reached at mgoldstein@globe.com. 