Introducing ULTRA

The University Level Test of Reasoning Abilities™.

ULTRA is the world’s first research-based Success Quotient (S.Q.) test that is fun to take.  ULTRA measures 21 mental abilities and 18 family/cultural factors that determine your success in life.  ULTRA teaches you how to control each of those factors.   Most of these powerful factors are usually overlooked by most psychological tests. Three of those factors predominate in childhood and are easily remembered: Curiosity, Imagination, and Achievement Drive (CIAD). All three of these are more important in determining life success than an IQ score.

ULTRA applies Michael Gelb’s study of Da Vinci’s Curiosity; Dr. Maria Montessori’s and Rudolph Steiner’s insights on Imagination; Harvard’s David McClelland’s cross-cultural research on the Achievement Drive;

ULTRA factors in Erik Erikson’s theory of the 8-Stages of Life, beginning with Trust vs Mistrust; The Rosenthal Effect, or the “Self-fulfilling Prophecy” or the Pygmalion Effect Carl Jung’s concept of “Finding One’s True Calling”

ULTRA goes outside the German-Anglo-Saxon psychological traditions to apply the research findings of the French and Swiss traditions: Alfred Binet’s and Claude Levi-Strauss’ notions that at birth everyone is a genius Jean Piaget’s discovery that given freedom and the right stimulation the person’s development is almost auto Octave Mannoni’s discovery in Madagascar that one’s psychological health depend primarily upon the psychological health of the family and the culture and that creating a healthy family and culture is everyone’s task.

ULTRA brings the critical findings of anthropology into Personality Testing: Children will not rebel during adolescence if they know their true calling.  See Margaret Mead The strongest personalities come from the strongest cultures which are exogamous, e.g., Koreans, the Ibos of Nigeria and some African-Americans. See Cornelius Osgood and Robert A. Levine.

ULTRA acknowledges the role of Inspiration in helping a person achieve success Inspiration may come from many sources, music, the fine arts, sports, family stories of heroes, the choice of one’s readings, religious events, etc.

ULTRA applies the “Virtuoso Effect.”

A violin virtuoso needs only a few seconds to determine if your child has the talents for the violin.  ULTRA uses only 50 easy questions to help you find your “True Calling.

”

Dr. Shinichi Suzuk

 “If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth, and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance.  He gets beautiful heart."

ULTRA applies the “fun” principle to learning and testing.

American Philosopher John Dewey at Columbia over 100 years ago proposed the radical idea that learning should be fun.  The corollary is that testing for learning should not be painful. (Most people who have taken ULTRA judge it to be at the +8 level or higher on a 21 point scale, -10 (Pain) to 0 to +10 (Pleasure).

ULTRA, before being launched, received the enthusiastic endorsement of two university presidents, Jason Pistillo, The University of Advancing Technology, Tempe, Arizona and Dr. Sabrina Kay, Fremont College in Los Angeles.

What Mental Skills does ULTRA Sample?

With fifty questions ULTRA samples the examinee’s reasoning skills in 21 domains and in doing so indirectly coaches the examinee on how to increase his or her thinking skills in each of those domains.[1]

These domains are

         3. Everyday Problem Solving (What competent mothers of many children and great managers are                good at.)

         4.  Inferential reasoning  (What shrewd reporters and winning businessmen are good at.)

         5. Critical Reasoning (Since our world has lots of tricksters and phonies, everyone needs to be                    good at this.)

Rt. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

6.  Application of Scientific Principles (Great engineers, inventors and others can find practical applications from a great theory.)

7.  Imagination and Inspiration ( Cecil B. DeMille and J.D. Rawling exercised their imaginations and inspired others.)

8.  Memory and Knowledge Acquisition (Jeopardy champions exercise this skill all the time.)

9.  Personal Relationships (People who get along well with others are nearly always popular. It starts in the family.)

10. Observational Skills (Marco Polo and Charles Darwin were good at this.  Read them and learn some techniques.)

11. Creative Thinking Skills.  (Watch children at play and you will see this all the time.)

12. Self Awareness (“Know thyself” is the oldest law of both philosophy and psychology.)

13. Ability to read others’ intentions and to cooperate with others. (How do so many crooks get elected?)

14. Verbal Reasoning (Poets, writers, journalists and politicians need to be good at this.)  

15. Mathematical/Statistical Reasoning (Believe it or not, research has shown that babies are good at this.)

16. Spatial Reasoning (Not only astronauts, but architects, surgeons and sculptors must excel in this skill.)

17. Musical Thinking (Babies have perfect pitch. Einstein kept this ability because his mother played music all day.)

18. Kinesthetic Thinking (Great athletes and dancers have this skill and develop it.)

19. Ecological Intelligence (Polluters are weak in this area.)[2]

20. Curiosity (One reason babies resist sleep is that they know they might miss something.)

21. Achievement Drive (Success Drive) (“If it can be measured, it can be improved.”)  David McClelland at Harvard taught us 

how to measure this drive, otherwise known as ambition.  One way is the contents of one’s daydreams; another way is one’s 

willingness to sacrifice for a future goal.  One does not win an Olympic medal or a Nobel Prize without this drive, nor get to the top 

of any profession or trade without it.

[1] Statisticians and psychologists argue about how large a sample one needs in order to draw a valid inference.  One drop of water, not a liter, is sufficient to estimate the salinity of a sea if the drop comes from the center of that sea; Suzuki showed that only a few seconds with a child was sufficient to stimulate the child’s interest in the violin and set that child on a course to become a competent musician.  This test is a tiny sample of your various capacities. Think of your capacity as infinitely large, covering all possibilities. The true questions are, “Where are your strengths?” and “Are you willing to put in the effort to develop your strengths?” This test will not give you the “final” answers; but it will give good starting answers.

[2] Harvard’s Howard Gardner identified 8 independent intelligences with each actually using defined portions of the human brain.  See, Gardner, Howard, Frames of Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1983.

And the Sociological Factors Considered in ULTRA?

Ibn Khaldun (1332 AD – 1406, C.E. )

1. Family cohesion is the single best predictor of an individual’s mental health.
2. Social cohesion is next in importance.  The British historian Arnold Toynbee considered the essay on cohesion or social solidarity by Tunisian Ibn Khaldun as the greatest essay ever written.  Notice that polygamous families and societies, for example, never produce great achievers. Polygamy works against cohesiveness.
3. We estimate one’s achievement drive (or ambition) by several questions.
4. Inspiration via music.  The founder of IBM, Thomas Watson, would not hire a top engineer unless the person had music in his background.
5.  Inspiration via other sources.  Intelligent families find inspiration in many different ways.
6. My research in over 19 elementary school classrooms in Fiji over a five year period (1978 – 1983 confirmed Adler’s and Bruner’s hypothesis that all else being equal the fastest way to raise the IQ of a child is via games, and the more abstract the games the better.  Besides being fun, games help the child develop skills in theory building, according to Jerome Bruner at Harvard.
7.  Education level of the mother.
8. Education level of the father.
9. What one reads as a child is important.  See David C. McClelland (The Achieving Society)
10. The Rosenthal Effect, the self-fulfilling prophecy, is most powerful in the family setting.

These and other “givens” are factored into 18 questions that help yield one’s Success Quotient (SQ).   We constantly remind our examinees that everything measurable can be improved.  We offer abundant suggestions for improving all of the factors within one’s Success Quotient (SQ).