Shadowing Practice: The Scariest IQ Statistics | Jordan Peterson - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
166 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
During our research, we found a video of you where someone asked you about IQ, and you said you were previously tested quite a while ago,
2
and you said it was in excess of 150.
3
Granted, it does decline as you age, and you also said having a high IQ like that means
4
that you have high volatility or variance in other areas of intelligence.
5
As intelligence increases, the variability and intelligence increases
6
so psychometrically there's sort of one way to be not very bright
7
and a variety of ways to be very bright
8
so there's differentiation at the upper end right and
9
so my i would say i'm not particularly gifted mathematically
10
so i struggled with statistics i eventually figured it out
11
but it certainly didn't come to me easily
12
i don't tend to think mathematically
13
i've certainly had students who were like immeasurably more intelligent than me on the mathematical front
14
i had a student at harvard
15
she went from zero statistics to winning teaching awards for teaching
16
it in about six months she was a little autistic
17
she was also a very good writer that's a rare combination to have that extreme
18
spatial mathematical intelligence and extreme verbal intelligence you get a person like
19
that now and then it's pretty rare and she was just coded
20
that way to be able to do that that wasn't anything that she did to be able to learn quickly?
21
IQ is very biologically determined.
22
Very.
23
And it's very, uh, it's very rough.
24
It's no wonder my student and I, Daniel Higgins, who is a partner of mine in business still, we, uh, at Harvard in the 1990s,
25
we did a lot of work investigating the world of psychometric measurement.
26
So that would be the assessment of cognitive ability and personality
27
and we delve very deeply into the literature on neuropsychological function
28
and so that would be that's from a field
29
that basically derived its information from animal experimental studies as well
30
as human beings study of human beings with various forms of brain damage
31
there was a an effort i don't know
32
if that's still ongoing to develop tests
33
that would be associated where people would show decrements
34
that were associated with known areas of brain damage they developed a lot of specialized tests my student
35
and i on my old supervisor we computerized a battery of
36
so -called neuropsychological tests and then we used them and iq tests
37
and personality to predict academic performance and managerial performance
38
and uh like line worker performance trying to figure out well two things what exactly is it
39
That makes someone productive depending on their positioning.
40
And then also how could that be measured effectively so that if you wanted to hire or place or promote,
41
you could do that in the most effective possible manner.
42
And so that meant that we had to thoroughly familiarize ourselves with the neuropsychological literature, which I already kind of knew,
43
with the IQ literature, which was quite new to me, and then with the personality literature.
44
And so the basic claim of the psychometricians on the IQ side is that for all intents and purposes, IQ is relatively unitary.
45
So intelligence, general cognitive ability, personality is multidimensional, but cognitive ability, although it differentiates at the upper end,
46
is a pretty solid unit.
47
And no one likes that idea.
48
And no wonder.
49
It's no wonder.
50
So why would people not like it? while it seems very unfair
51
and anti -egalitarian to note that there's wide variation in the trait
52
that is the best predictor of long -term success in complex occupations
53
it's not like the cards are dealt out equally they're not dealt out equally how much of
54
that is genetic most of it so
55
if you have smart parents you're probably going to be smart parents
56
you're going to be slightly less smart than the average of your parents because imagine
57
that your intelligence isn't determined only by your parents
58
it's determined in a way by the whole stream of your ancestry now
59
if you have two smart parents on average their ancestors are going to be slightly less smart than they are
60
so you get the best way to predict your iq
61
if we didn't know anything else would be to take the iq of your mother
62
and father and average them and then reduce it somewhat
63
because that's called regression towards the mean
64
so there's a tendency for biological forms to default back to their standard configuration
65
or increase it if the average was lower than yeah that's right
66
so if you had two parents who were impaired in their cognitive ability
67
or far below average on average you'd be smarter than they were would
68
that then suggest that with enough time we're all going to be about even
69
if everyone's kind of well yeah which is iq the average is 100
70
so hasn't it been going up over time though there's debate about
71
that um it's gone up over time in some ways for sure
72
so although it's difficult to increase iq you you get companies now
73
and then who pop up and claim
74
that they can increase your cognitive function there's zero evidence for
75
that there's no what happens if you
76
if you practice a complex task you tend to get much better at the complex task say a video game
77
but it doesn't transfer over
78
and make you generally smarter no one's figured out how to increase iq with with cognitive exercises you can maintain
79
or increase your iq with exercise cardiovascular and and weight lifting
80
because your brain is a very demanding organ so
81
if your cardiovascular system is healthy especially as you age that's a huge deal there's nothing
82
that you can do that's more important than staying in physical shape to maintain your cognitive ability
83
so but um nobody knows how to increase it i mean that would be a discovery of infinite value, but no one's figured it out.
84
You can suppress IQ quite easily by,
85
say, not stimulating young children to the degree that their intelligence has room to play,
86
let's say, or by not breastfeeding them.
87
That's a good way to have stupider children, if that's what you're after.
88
Breastfeeding confers, I think, something like a three to four point
89
increment per year breastfed it's something like why is
90
that is it just the bond nutrition the brain's a very demanding organ
91
and so it uses a tremendous amount of your metabolic resources
92
and so nutrition and exercise make a huge difference um so
93
if you take you asked about biological determinism with regards to iq
94
so imagine that you take twins identical twins who were separated at birth
95
and then you track their iq as they age well by the time they're 60 their iqs are
96
so similar regardless of their background that it's as
97
if you're testing the same person twice so strangely enough
98
if iq was environmentally determined you'd expect twins separated at birth to diverge as they age they don't they converge
99
so i can see that why
100
that uh makes people very upset there's a whole bunch of reasons to be upset by i mean the
101
when when daniel and i sorted this out in the 90s we thought
102
that this might be the shoal upon which western culture demolishes itself
103
because iq is a vicious predictor of long -term success
104
it's by far the best predictor it's five times as powerful as conscientiousness
105
which is the next best predictor so conscientiousness is associated with industriousness
106
and orderliness it's associated with political conservatism
107
it's associated with traditionalism out group let's say skepticism towards out groups to some degree that's conservatism more but um
108
and we probably can't measure conscientiousness as accurately as we can measure iq we have to rely on personality scales
109
and self self -report and reports from other people that's the best we've been able to manage
110
and no one has been able to come up with a
111
practical test of conscientiousness like i'm probably trying 50 things in
112
my lab bringing conscientious people into the lab giving them different sorts of tests seeing
113
if we could figure out what activity conscientious people would do better in the lab
114
so we could use that as a measure we could never do it
115
so we did things like for example imagine you have rows of n's m's
116
u's which are visually quite difficult to distinguish imagine a variety of rows of those
117
and then your job is to go through and circle all the ends, you'd think perhaps that would be associated with something like diligence or industriousness,
118
conscientiousness, but it's just another IQ test.
119
It's very, very hard to find a cognitive test that isn't just IQ.
120
And IQ is very easy to measure.
121
This is another thing that makes it troublesome, let's say, apart from the fact of unbelievable variation between people.
122
Like people with extreme IQs are
123
so much more productive than people with on the lower end of the scale
124
that they're not in the same universe in the sense
125
and they're certainly in the same moral universe
126
and they have the same value intrinsically and
127
and iq is not associated with morality let's say just
128
because you're smarter doesn't mean you're a better person
129
and in fact i think there's a temptation
130
that comes along with intelligence that's luciferian and that's been warned about in mythologies forever bitter intellect you know
131
The person who has been gifted by God, so to speak, with a great intellect,
132
who believes that the world should bow at their feet in consequence or presumes that they're rational, what would you say?
133
Their cogitations produce systems of value that should be imposed upon the world.
134
That's the Luciferian temptation.
135
But there's a massive difference between people at the upper end of the cognitive distribution and people at the lower end. And so...
136
And it's easy to measure.
137
It's very robust.
138
So, for example, imagine you had a library of 10 ,000 questions.
139
Questions about anything, they require abstract cognition to solve.
140
That's the only criteria.
141
Multiple choice questions, vocabulary questions, general knowledge questions, mathematical questions, spatial rotation questions, anything that requires abstract cognition.
142
Okay, so they have 10 ,000 questions extract out a random set of 100 questions, give that to 100 people,
143
sum their scores, rank order them.
144
That's IQ.
145
Now, the technical IQ test correct for age, but that's irrelevant with regards to the measurement.
146
Now, really quick, I just want to say that if you have a family or people who rely on your income,
147
there's a lot riding on you being there.
148
You're working hard to take care of them, but you also have to think about what happens if one day you're not there.
149
And that's where our partner Ethos comes in.
150
They make getting life insurance incredibly simple so you can help make sure
151
that people who depend on you are taken care of if something happens.
152
And I understand.
153
Life insurance is one of those things that's really easy to put off, especially when you're young and healthy.
154
But that's actually when you could lock in the best rates.
155
With Ethos, you can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and even get same -day coverage with no medical exam required.
156
You just answer a few simple health questions.
157
And you could get up to $3 million in coverage with some policies starting as low as $30 a month.
158
Plus, even if If you have life insurance through your job, that may not actually be enough to cover your family.
159
And it almost certainly does not follow you if you leave that job.
160
So having your own policy means that you're protected no matter what.
161
Ethos has a 4 .9 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot with over 4 ,000 reviews
162
and getting started takes about 10 minutes.
163
So take 10 minutes and make sure the people who rely on you are covered.
164
Get your free quote at ethos .com slash iced coffee.
165
Once again, that is ethos .com slash iced coffee.
166
The link is also down below in the description application times may vary, rates may vary.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B24
How To Get Your FIRST 1,000 Followers On Twitch! | Stable Ronaldo
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B2The WORST Financial Situation Caleb Hammer Has Ever Seen (Sad)
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
How Much MONEY Twitch Streamers Actually Make | Stable Ronaldo
Business EnglishDaily ConversationWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
C13
140 sentences
High IQ vs High EQ: Who Actually Wins at Life
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1149 sentences
Choose Your Circle Wisely: Jordan Peterson on Cutting Out Toxicity
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
633 sentences
The ‘Self’ You Can’t Find with Sam Harris
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
67 sentences
Traumatic Intelligence, the "Rarest Type" Discourse
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
654 sentences
Stuart & Cliffe Knechtle | Do Agnostics Just Want To Have Control? | Give Me an Answer
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
828 sentences
Harvard AI Professor: The People Most at Risk From AI Aren’t Who You Think
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
63 sentences
TED@NYC: The Power of Negative Thinking
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
582 sentences
You've (Likely) Been Playing The Game Of Life Wrong
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1205 sentences
The Psychology of People Who Don't Post on Social Media (Explained by a Neuroscientist)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
91 sentences
7 Signs You Might Be Less Intelligent Than You Think
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
232 sentences
How to Train Your Brain to Enjoy Hard Work | Andrew Huberman
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C18
55 sentences
Your genes affect your education. Here’s why that’s controversial. | Kathryn Paige Harden
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Scariest IQ Statistics”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: questions, cognitive, intelligence, test, increase. This video has 166 sentences and 2029 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:59. The speaker talks at a natural 169 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| cognitive adjective | /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/ | Relating to the part of mental functions that deals with logic, as opposed to affective which deals with emotions. |
| twin noun | /twɪn/ | Either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one who was born at the same birth as a sibling. |
| rely verb | /ɹɪˈlaɪ/ | To trust; to have confidence in; to depend. |
| mathematical adjective | /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/ | Of, or relating to mathematics. |
| equally adverb | /ˈiːkwəli/ | In an equal manner; in equal shares or proportion; with equal and impartial justice; evenly |
| biological adjective | /ˌbaɪ.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/ | Of or relating to biology. |
| vary verb | /ˈvɛəɹi/ | To change with time or a similar parameter. |
| productive adjective | /pɹəˈdʌk.tɪv/ | Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile. |
| depend verb | /dɪˈpɛnd/ | To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition |
| regards noun | /ɹɪˈɡɑɹdz/ | A greeting to pass on to another person. |
| abstract noun | /ˈæbˌstɹækt/ | An abridgement or summary of a longer publication. |
| organ noun | /ˈɔːɡən/ | The larger part of an organism, composed of tissues that perform similar functions. |
| nutrition noun | /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ən/ | The organic process by which an organism assimilates food and uses it for growth and maintenance. |
| predict verb | /pɹɪˈdɪkt/ | To make a prediction: to forecast, foretell, or estimate a future event on the basis of knowledge and reasoning; to prophesy a future event on the basis of… |
| variation noun | /ˌvɛəɹiˈeɪʃn̩/ | The act of varying; a partial change in the form, position, state, or qualities of a thing. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
| get up to verb | To do something, especially something that is forbidden or improper. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| pop up verb | To come up with a "pop" sound. |
| put off verb | To postpone, especially through procrastination. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if we didn't know anything else would be · if iq was environmentally determined you'd expect |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were previously tested · was just coded · would be associated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | students who were · literature, which was · yeah which is |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | i've certainly had · we've been · has been |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 35 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, they're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: mathematical /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/, thoroughly /ˈθʌɹ.ə.li/, mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, ethos /ˈiθɑs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: nutrition /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ən/, variation /ˌvɛəɹiˈeɪʃn̩/, measurement /ˈmɛʒ.ə.mənt/, spatial /ˈspeɪ.ʃəl/, temptation /ˌtɛmpˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: mathematical /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/, biological /ˌbaɪ.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/, cardiovascular /ˌkɑːdi.əʊˈvæskjʊlə(ɹ)/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like cognitive, twin, rely.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.