Kye Bunker Professor Caruso English 1102 8 April, 2013

CAP Article
Memo: I am responding to an article titled The Brain Trainers because I found it very interesting and knowledgeable. The context of my article explains little ways people can improve their brains as well as the age at which doing mental exercises is most beneficial. I will also inform the audience about the article The Brain Trainers and tell them how much success a company called LearningRx has had in improving peoples I.Q.s. The purpose of this article is to inform people and especially the teenaged generation of America that it is in fact possible to improve their I.Q. A letter was the most logical way to express the information to the people I want it to reach. I think that an article in magazines that kids read, such as Time for Kids, would reach the greatest number of teenagers in the United States. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/a-new-kind-of-tutoring-aims-to-makestudents-smarter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=3&

Increasing Your I.Q.

I have read the article The Brain Trainers.From reading this article I have come to realize that a persons IQ can be increased. IQ is a measure of someones relative intelligence and it can be found by dividing a persons mental age by their chronological age and then

multiplying it by 100. For example, a 6 year old boy that has the mental age of a 3 year old would have an IQ of 50, because 6 divided by 3 equals .5 and then you multiply that value by 100 to get 50. I thought that it was very interesting that a person can raise their IQ. I had always thought that a person was born with a fixed IQ that could not be increased or decreased. I didnt know about this and so I am sure that there are a lot of people that do not know about it. It is important for people and especially younger aged people to know that raising their IQ is very possible.It is more important that younger aged people know this information due to their increased chance of raising their IQ and because their brains are still developing. It will be very beneficial and I think that it can change peoples lives if they know this information. Young kids and adolescents dont need to sit around and not participate in school. They need to read books and not take such long layoffs during the summer. They can participate in programs such as LearningRx and their lives would greatly improve.Did you know that IQ can be changed? A persons IQ can be increased through certain exercises. I want the younger generation of America to know this information because I think that they can greatly benefit from it. A company called LearningRx has had tremendous success in helping people raise their IQs, The average gain on I.Q. is 15 points after 24 weeks of training, and 20 points in less than 32 weeks(Hurley Para. 8). I think that this is an amazing stat. The people that participated in LearningRx didnt just raise their IQ by a couple points, they raised their IQ by an astounding 15 to 20 points.LearningRxused math and reading assignments to help kids. This company also helps people remember more when they are studying. Kids can study less time and learn more after doing LearningRx than they could before. Participants of LearningRx have claimed that it used to take them an hour to remember 20 words and after participating in LearningRx they can learn up to 40 new words in less than 20 minutes. That is an astounding improvement. Now that

you know this information, are you wondering what the most beneficial age is to participate in mental activities? IQ increases at different rates depending on age. Researchers have found that IQ can rise or fall during the teen years and that the brain's structure reflects this uptick or decline (Gisela Telis Para. 1). From reading this quote it is easy to gather that the teen years are very important in the development of a persons brain and in what their IQ score becomes. This means that studying, reading and doing mental exercises are more beneficial throughout the teen years than later on in life. It is important for teenagers to always participate in mental exercises even if its just something as simple as reading a book.One indication of the importance of school is that childrens I.Q.s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation, particularly for kids whose parents dont inflict books or summer programs on them (Nicholas Kristof, Para. 8). If I knew this information during my early teen years I may have done a few things differently. Even just reading one or two books over the summer is better than reading nothing at all and the benefits down the road will be well worth the time and effort put into keeping your brain sharp. The reason that I decided to write this article is to inform people in America and especially the younger generation that it is very important to train your brain and to work on increasing your IQ. There is a very strong correlation between IQ and the level of happiness that people experience during their lives. Happiness is significantly associated with IQ. Those in the lowest IQ range (70-99) reported the lowest levels of happiness compared with the highest IQ group (120-129) (Ali A. Para. 2). Who knew that IQ and intelligence had any correlation with happiness?

If kids knew that reading over the summer during their teenage years would help keep their brain sharp and help increase their I.Q. then I think a lot of teenagers would do it. I didnt know that IQ had so many effects such as being linked to happiness and also money. I think that it is very vital for teenagers to just at least read or participate in a little bit of mental exercise during their summers. My hope is that teenagers take the facts that they have gained from this article and do a little bit of mental exercise during their summer layoffs. Teenagers dont have to participate in programs such as LearningRx, but at least reading a book over the summer would greatly pay off for them in the future.

Works Cited
Hurley, Dan. The Brain Trainers.Nytimes.com. October 31, 2012. Web.March20, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/a-new-kind-of-tutoringaims-to-make-students-smarter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& Telis, Gisela. Study: IQ can grow, or diminish, in adolescence. Sfgate.com. October 21, 2011. Web. March 23, 2013.http://www.sfgate.com/world/article/Study-IQ-cangrow-or-diminish-in-adolescence-2325922.php Kristof, Nicholas. How to Raise Our I.Q. Nytimes.com. April 5, 2009. Web. March 24, 2013.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/opinion/16kristof.html?_r=0 Ali A. The Relationship Between Happiness and Intelligent Quotient: The Contribution of Socio-Economic and Clinical Factors. Ncbi.gov. September 24, 2012. Web. March 25, 2013.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22998852

Research Pre-Writing The purpose of my piece is to inform people, especially the teenage generation of America, that it is in fact possible for a person to increase their I.Q. I need articles that give me facts and examples to support my point. I need to look up all of the activities that people can do to improve their brain and increase their I.Q. I think that Dan Hurley wrote this article as an informational as well as a promotional article for LearningRx, who is a company that has had tremendous success in helping people train their I.Q.s.

I need to research what activities people can do to increase their I.Q. and to improve their brain. I also need to research whether or not there is an age where mental exercises are more beneficial for a persons brain.

I need to research ways a persons I.Q. can be increased in order to inform people what they can do to help their brains.

The interest of my audience is how they can increase their I.Q. They will gravitate to the ways of how they can improve their I.Q. since that is what they want to do. An unintended audience could be parents who have children and want them to have the highest I.Q. possible going into adulthood.

I used to read Time for Kids when I was younger so I have already seen examples of what are typically in this magazine.