What are 2 differences between intelligence and aptitude tests?

Published: April 20, 2018

Difference between Intelligence and Aptitude

  • While intelligence is the ability of an individual to gain knowledge and understand cumbersome situations, aptitude can be defined as the capacity to apply the same knowledge. For example, a person may be intelligent enough to gain knowledge about military, navy, and air force or defense related matters; but may not possess an aptitude to practice the same effectively in his/her real life.
  • While intelligence measures the general mental ability of an individual, aptitude measures the abilities and capacities related to specific fields. For example, an intelligent person may have knowledge related to diverse fields like engineering, medicine, administration, politics, etc; but he/she may have the capacity to practice only one of the fields effectively in the real life.

Importance of Aptitude and Intelligence in life of civil servants

For a civil servant the Intelligence and aptitude forms the supporting pillars in his task of serving the people effectively. Recently a civil servant narrated an incident on how he dealt with a politician who was pressuring him to favour his supporters in a procurement process.

He narrated the provisions of prevention of corruption act and the potential of the right to information act to the politician and convinced him that flaunting of rules will be detrimental to both civil servant and the politician.

Incidents like this are a common phenomenon of the Indian society. Knowing the intricacies of the prevention of corruption act and right to information was the indication of the intelligence of the civil servant. The ability to use these provisions to persuade the politician is the hallmark of his aptitude. Aptitude helped him to use the acquired knowledge to set the things in order according to rule of law without getting into confrontation.

Aptitude and intelligence are not binary opposites. Aptitude comes with interest and passion for a subject, while intelligence is the mental capacity to understand and gain the knowledge.

Topics: GS-IV: Public Service Values Ethics in Public Admin

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There are different types of test systems that are used to measure ability of a human being. Some of them are used to examine the intelligence of a person, while some are for testing the whole mental ability of a person. These entire tests have different types of questions, they are commonly known as IQ, EQ, Aptitude tests. Now we take a look on the difference between all of them.

Aptitude Test

Aptitude generally refers to a test, which may be physical, mental or both. It includes different type of questions and tasks. It is generally a test containing many collective characteristics which are used to check the mental as well as physical ability of a person.

Intelligence Test

Intelligence is derived from a latin word “intelliger”, which means to pick-out or discern. Intelligence may be defined in many ways including communication, abstracting, planning. To measure this ability in human being, different sorts of intelligence tests are available everywhere.

IQ

IQ is known as intelligence quotient. It is a score which is derived from different standardized tests to assess the intelligence of a person. Modern intelligence tests are conducted on the base of average or mean score within an age group is set to 100 to standard deviation to15. IQ scores tell about the intelligence of a person normally.

EQ

It is known as emotional intelligence. It includes your ability to use your emotions and cognitive skills in your life. It has no limitations on creativity, flexibility, leadership, coping and other interpersonal skills.

Intelligence Test vs Aptitude Test vs IQ vs EQ

The difference between aptitude test and intelligence test is, intelligence refers to specifically some single mental ability of a person while aptitude includes many characteristics which can be independent to each other such as military aptitude, aptitude test for computer programming. The difference between IQ and EQ is, IQ is a score which is derived from different test to asses the intelligence of a person. It includes only mental intelligence test, while EQ also includes emotional intelligence of a person. It is not limited to different interpersonal skills, while IQ is limited.

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What is the difference between aptitude and intelligence test?

Simply put, an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) test measures statistically how intelligent a person is while an aptitude (General Intelligence) test measures how well that person can apply their intelligence to different scenarios.

What is the distinction of aptitude and intelligence how they affect each other?

The aptitude concept involves inferences about performance in future learning or training situations. Intelligence is usually seen as between achievement and aptitude on the continua of test use and antecedent experiences.

What are the two types of intelligence tests?

The two main individual intelligence tests are the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test and the Wechsler tests, i.e. Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children (WISC) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) for adults.

What is the difference between intelligence and achievement tests?

Intelligence tests are different than achievement tests in that they measure someone's potential rather than progress. Intelligence tests can measure potential for academic achievement, or their strengths and weaknesses, according to Mind Disorders.com.