I don't understand how reducing chained dependencies will eliminate g loading.
If you eliminated g loading of a mathematical test, you'd need to be able to take a developmentally challenged person, and expect, statistically, for them to get the same score as a fields medalist. I just don't see how you're going to swing that.
RE: The Mensa site. They claim that the GRE and the SAT and the ACT no longer correlate with IQ. Or g. That's just wrong. The old SAT correlates positively with the new SAT. The old SAT correlates positively with g. You'd have to have an extremely unusual statistical correlation between the old SAT and some other variables to yield 0 correlation with g.
They could be concerned that it's less well correlated. Or that preparatory courses from Kaplan, et. al. were killing the correlation.
But in all seriousness, who's keeping count. There are pretty severe conceptual problems with g anyway. I mean, all it is is the principal factor in a kind of multivariate linear regression analysis of a bunch of scores on tests, which are arbitrarily selected and claimed to represent 'intelligence.' You can't expect that linear statistical relationships mapping a few scores from a few tests chosen ad hoc really capture the breadth and diversity and range of human intelligence. It's crazy! If we look for some linear relationship, we'll find it. But it can't possibly tell the whole story.
To the best of my limited knowledge, general intelligence is produced by finding associations between ideas held in working memory. The machines that carry it out in the brain are unreliable and have capacity limits, so the fewer ideas and associations needed to solve a problem, the more likely success is.
For a math test, reducing g loading means having simple problems that rely on previously-learned information, rather than multi-step problems and problems that require invention. This is trivial to arrange.
Obviously this will not make a dull person able to pass the test, but we're talking about college prep tests, where the competition is among the people on the top part of the g bell curve.
The MENSA issue is one of grossly insufficient correlation, since the organization is based on intelligence, not educational history.
g is the psychometric measure most highly correlated with practical outcomes like annual income and mortality risk. I suspect the second most correlated measure is attentional control (focus versus ADD), which is the fuel for the brain's g engine. (Time preference likely has more practical importance than either, but we don't yet know how to measure it.)
If you eliminated g loading of a mathematical test, you'd need to be able to take a developmentally challenged person, and expect, statistically, for them to get the same score as a fields medalist. I just don't see how you're going to swing that.
RE: The Mensa site. They claim that the GRE and the SAT and the ACT no longer correlate with IQ. Or g. That's just wrong. The old SAT correlates positively with the new SAT. The old SAT correlates positively with g. You'd have to have an extremely unusual statistical correlation between the old SAT and some other variables to yield 0 correlation with g.
They could be concerned that it's less well correlated. Or that preparatory courses from Kaplan, et. al. were killing the correlation.
But in all seriousness, who's keeping count. There are pretty severe conceptual problems with g anyway. I mean, all it is is the principal factor in a kind of multivariate linear regression analysis of a bunch of scores on tests, which are arbitrarily selected and claimed to represent 'intelligence.' You can't expect that linear statistical relationships mapping a few scores from a few tests chosen ad hoc really capture the breadth and diversity and range of human intelligence. It's crazy! If we look for some linear relationship, we'll find it. But it can't possibly tell the whole story.