Are You Mensa Material? Take The Test For Half Price In October

DETROIT (WWJ) - Brainiacs: It's time to put your money where your mouth is and find out if you're Mensa material.

For the entire month of October, the high-IQ society is offering tests at half price -- only $20. But there's a catch: You can only take the Mensa-administered test once in a lifetime.

Pauline Averbach, a test proctor for Southeast Michigan Mensa, said the test is really a measure of your ability to think under pressure.

"What they test is how well you think on your feet, pretty much," Averbach told WWJ's Scott Ryan. "There is some mathematics involved, but not a lot. It's really how you respond to a presented situation within a time limit."

If you don't pass the Mensa-administered test, you're dreams at joining the organization aren't dashed just yet. You can still apply for membership by presenting "prior evidence" that you have scored in the top two percent of the general population on a supervised standardized intelligence test.

Averbach said members of Mensa come from all walks of life. They could even be your neighbors -- and you might not know it.

"We have one man who works at Greenfield Village repairing antique vehicles," she said. "We have people who work on the line at a car manufacturing plant, some people are self-employed, some people are lawyers, and some people are just ordinary people who happen to have this one particular ability."

For more information or to take a practice Mensa test, visit mensadetroit.com.