The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ [Paperback]

Richard Pellegrino (Author), Michael J. Politis (Author)

Book Description

Series: The Complete Idiot's Guide | Publication Date: December 23, 1998

You're no idiot, of course. You've read a few books and can hold your own in a room full of university professors. But when it comes to problem-solving and understanding complex theories and facts, you feel like your brain is going to explode. Don't reach for the aspirin just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ unlocks the secrets of you brain and teaches you how to whip those sparking synapses into shape. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

You're no idiot, of course. You've read a few books and can hold your own in a room full of university professors. But when it comes to problem-solving and understanding complex theories and facts, you feel like your brain is going to explode. Don't reach for the aspirin just yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ unlocks the secrets of you brain and teaches you how to whip those sparking synapses into shape. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Alpha; 1st edition (December 23, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028627245
• ISBN-13: 978-0028627243
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,003,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Mistitled, August 12, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ (Paperback)

I expected to find, at least, nutritional suggestions, examples of "mental exercises" one can perform, etc. The authors get your attention with the title, and then [ruin] your expectations because the content is, quite simply, useless. It's fluff and "feel good" material ("you're only as intelligent as you are effective! that's all that matters!") and should be avoided by a person who's serious about improving their brain.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "Idiots Guide" is the Idiots Guide, March 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ (Paperback)

"Idiots Guide to Improving your IQ" from Alpha Books is misleading, deceptive, and useless at best in improving your IQ. For example, the author begins by manipulating throughout the whole book the definition of IQ into EQ ("Effective Intelligence"), making the title very misleading. By doing this, the content is nothing about improving your intellectuality, but rather your effectiveness. Also, the author's twisted view of IQ thus leads his motives of improving your intelligence into improving your efficiency. Moreover, this book is very deceptive. Instead of explaining intelligence, it goes into the anatomy of the brain and the body. This is incredibly boring, and has nothing to do with improving your intellectuality. Furthermore, this book is useless in improving your IQ. Since it focuses RARELY about intellectuality, and only efficiency, strategies, and anatomy, the reader never improves his or hers IQ. This book would be better titled, "Efficiency in the Workplace," or, "300 Pages of 'Nothing That Will Improve Your IQ'." In summary, this book is misleading, deceptive, and useless at improving your IQ. There are a few (VERY, VERY FEW), good points. It talks a little about how to sit for a positive "aura," and negative/positive communication. Nothing about intelligence, but that's still interesting. Those were the only chapters though that's a little entertaining, but even those chapters were written in simple sentences, and explained as though one was in the first grade. I would recommend this book for people looking for a book titled "Idiots Guide to Effective Work." Don't buy this if you're looking to improve your IQ, try a puzzle book, but PLEASE don't make the same mistake I did.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, insightful, informative., May 12, 2002

By 

"lucidaire" (MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving Your IQ (Paperback)

It's hard to choose where to begin my praise of this wonderful book... I suppose I'll address the other reviewers compaints first. The book openly states in the first couple of chapters that IQ really is an absurd statistic... the tests were originally designed to determine if a person was mentally handicapped, not to determine how intelligent they were. Besides, if a person walks into a flaming building to take an IQ test, they will obviously score higher than the person who doesn't. However, who would you consider more intelligent?

This book is not about raising an outdated and flawed statistic about how intelligent you are. It's about making you a more intelligent person.

The book addresses the facets of intelligence that many books on the subject utterly neglect. For instance, mood - how well can one intelligently act when they're depressed, sad, and otherwise run-down? Not very well at all, obviously. But I have never seen this simple yet extremely important factor mentioned in any other book.

Now, some other people have been complaining about the book being confusing, or about the brain, which they don't care about. Well,you will NEVER find a book as simply, eloquently, and effectivly written on the subject of neuroscience, neuropsychology, and abstract mental concepts such as intelligence. I was amazed at the simplicity with which the author could convey concepts that other books rambled on and on about for several pages; often these horrendously complex concepts were simply explained in a single paragraph. Not only does this allow virtually everyone to access this book, but it allows this author to fill it with more information than half a dozen other books have on intelligence. Also, this is one of the very few books that clearly explains the connection between intelligence and the brain, which everyone needs to understand to truly improve their intelligence to any significant degree.

Is this a book that gives you abstract little word puzzles and mind twisters to allow you to get a higher number on the next IQ test you take? No. This is a book to fundamentally change the way you live, to give you the information you need to be happy, active, wonderfully productive, intelligent, and an awesome example of human potential. In my honest opinion, everybody should have been taught this information in school.

The author also doesn't just tell you about these amazing concepts, he has managed to find simple, easy to do exercises that allow you to actually apply every important concept that is presented - and these exercises aren't dry, boring, nor tedious; they're fun, and most of them can be done simply by changing one of the things you do in your daily life. These are the most effective intelligence increasing exercises I've ever seen.

Would you rather have a three digit number to tell you how intelligent you are, or a life filled with wonderful achievements to trumpet your intelligence?