This is not what I am saying at all.
I googled "example IQ test questions" and got the following:
http://www.stevezervos.com/iq-test.htm
So I go to the first question: Which letter does not belong in this series? H D R Y L
I have seen similar questions before, so I start running through my list of possibilities: Is it a mixture of letters and vowels? no. Are the letters almost in order? no. What do the letters look like in standard book code? 8 4 18 25 12. Now I start running through my list of number sequence possiblities. Are the numbers in order? no. Are they primes? no. Are they a mix of odd and even? Yes. So my answer is Y is the odd one out. Is this right? I have no idea.
I go to the second question: Which alpha-numeric is the odd one out? 9D 8F 3E 6C
I again begin to enumerate. The obvious answer is that 3E contains 3, an odd number. The second possibility is that these numbers are in hex. In that case both 8F = 143 and 9D = 157 are odd, while 3E = 62 and 6C = 108 are even, so that's out. Another possibility is that the numbers are in hex and one is prime. In this case 62 (31x2), 108 (9x12), and 143 (11x13, I checked a list of prime numbers
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]) are not prime (11 x 13, I googled) but 157 is. Both solutions match so I select the hexadecimal one a-priori because prime numbers are cool.
The point I am trying to make is that my thought process here is entirely specific to IQ tests. I know several ways of looking at sequences of numbers for patterns. I apply them. If the test uses one of the ones I know, I get the problem right. If it doesn't, I don't. So I check the answers: (1) Y does not belong.. Every other letter is the third letter following a vowel. (2) 8f. The word for the number 9 contains 4 letters (nine) so the fourth letter of the alphabet (D) is paired with it. This rule applies to the other pairs as well, except 8F.
I have not seen either of those types of patterns before, so I never considered them. I definitely prefer my first solution to his as it is far simpler. I also prefer my second solution as "hexidecimal primes" is simpler than "pairing the book code of a number's english length with the number".
The point I am trying to make by this is that there is nothing GENERAL or FACTORED to what I am doing. It is 100% specific to IQ tests. I don't believe in Spearman's 1 factor or Gardner's 10 factors or whatever.