A difficult question to answer, but I'll share with you what I know. IQ is defined by a person's 'processing' ability, which is what is commonly known as a type of intellegence. There are in fact about seven types of intellegence (though two of which, I find are debatable), so IQ isn't particularly relevant or reliable. IQ is found by the level of understanding, processing and logic, and the time it takes for the induvidual to do all this. However, there are all sorts of factors that can influence IQ. For example, brain activity due to stress or tiredness, guesswork of the induvidual, mental stimulation or relaxation, upbringing, and diet, to name a few. I suppose, the only way to find somebody's IQ would be to average a set of results given by the induvidual at a mental peak. Controlled conditions should be applied, like a good amount of sleep, some 'warm-up' brain stimulating activities, a good diet etc. The set of results would have to be averaged to find the induvidual's IQ. Even then, it wouldn't be exact. The score from an IQ test is usually plus or minus five points. Say, a person's IQ was 122, the real result would be in the range of 117 and 127. Yet some people say that intellegence doesn't lie in processing ability. There is intellegence to do with understanding people, intellegence to do with visual problems, mathematical problems, understanding etc. I hope that helps. :)

Basically "IQ" stands for intellegence qouta. Its something to average a person on their inteligence. I personally don't believe you can measure such a thing considering all the numerouse variables you would have to identify and measure. Thoughts and processing skills are very unique things which I'm pretty sure man will never be able to completely understand. Furthermore everybody thinks and analizes differently so what may be stupidity or low IQ to someone, may just be a unique way of thinking. Einstein himself failed math as a kid and was called stupid by his teachers but look at what people thought of him! Like Derek said it's really quite an unacurate process and isn't always right. So in a roundabout way (sorry for the long paragraph) what I'm trying to say is that although we may have estimates and processes for finding intellegence, we can never really truly measure someone's intelect.

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I believe that defining ones IQ is such a waste and very inaccurate to really determine someones true intelligence. I think that people excel in different ways. I had a friend that could barely pass English but became a very successful computer programmer at Intel. Intelligence is not measurable and will differ from person to person if you try to set a standard. I consider myself smart, but in school I was a slow learner and had to try twice as hard as my peers. I was just slow not dumb. I didn't lack intelligence.I grow my hair very well but haven't a clue how, and that is true intelligence.

I Q is an old fashioned term for a test that was devised to try to measure performance of children who might need extra help in school. The term is no longer used in school, business applications, or military. It has been replaced with a battery of tests that more accurately predict performance.