Search demand for "how to improve your IQ" and "how to improve your intelligence" usually wants one of three different things, and sellers often blur them.
Three claims people mix up
Test score movement. Practice effects, item familiarity, sleep, and anxiety can move an IQ score without proving a durable jump in general intelligence (g).
Competence growth. Crystallized skill and domain expertise keep rising for years with hard study. That is real improvement even when Raven-like fluid scores barely budge.
Far transfer from brain games to broad Gf. Near transfer to trained tasks is common. Large lasting Gf gains are not the default finding once active controls enter the picture.
If an article promises a free upgrade to general intelligence from puzzles alone, shrink the claim until it matches the evidence.
A boring adult plan that survives contact with research
- Sleep and aerobic exercise first.
- Deliberate practice in a hard domain (math, language, code, music).
- Optional adaptive reasoning practice if you enjoy it.
- Treat any practice estimate as training feedback, not a clinical IQ diagnosis.
Sources I maintain
- Claim-size map: intelligencemax.ai/guide
- Evidence pack: osf.io/kja9b
Disclosure: I build IntelligenceMax, an adaptive reasoning gym. Practice software is not a promise that apps raise trait IQ.
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