Usefulness of IQ tests

Hello

I'm new to Newsgroups but what I've seen so far is pretty impressive.
Just a comment on the validity or otherwisew of IQ tests.

As other contributors have stated, IQ tests are not necessarily an
indicator of future success. But they are useful in that they can
give some idea of a person's mental abilities and potential and this
can be a guide for the teacher when devising learning programmes and
also the style of teaching.

As a former teacher of maths I am aware of the fact that students
learn in different ways. Liam Hudson has written books detailing the
concepts of 'Divergent' and 'Convergent' thinking. A convergent
thinker would probably have the potential to be a good math student
but a divergent thinker less so.
Who is to say that a convergent thinker is superior to a divergent
thinker? (A divergent thinker is likely to be more creative than than
a convergent thinker.
A divergent thinker could probably write a longer list than a
convergent thinker if asked to write down as many uses as possible for
a brick!)

Conventional IQ tests tend to be heavily biased towards convergent
thinking styles thus the divergent thinker is automatically at a
disadvantage with such tests.

John P