Philip L Carter

Carter compiles psychometric test books, the practice volumes people buy before a graduate assessment or a Mensa application: verbal reasoning, number sequences, spatial puzzles, with answers and scoring in the back. The Complete Book of Intelligence Tests belongs to a long series, many of them written with Ken Russell. The books are practical rather than theoretical, and they step around the large argument about what an intelligence test actually measures. What they do teach is the format: the questions repeat in shape, and most of the gain from practice is recognising the shape rather than getting cleverer.