Exam Grades Mislead About Group IQ

Standardized school exam averages can diverge from independently measured cognitive scores across ethnic groups, because exams capture curriculum, motivation, selection and schooling effects as well as raw cognitive ability. Linking individual exam records to direct cognitive tests (e.g., Millennium Cohort) reveals that apparent paradoxes — groups with higher GCSEs but lower IQ scores — may reflect noncognitive and institutional factors rather than falsifying hereditarian claims. — If true, debates that use school exam aggregates to argue about innate group differences are misleading and could distort education, immigration and research policy.