By Melissa Morrison

AZ Republic, LIFE Section, Pg. 1, Nov 17, 1998

Nation’s smartest 2 percent get in.

There are 20 of us assembled at desks in a Phoenix Days Inn lecture room, waiting to take a two-hour exam to find out how smart we are. That we're spending a beautiful Saturday afternoon hunched over an answer sheet is probably an indicator right there.

But, as test taker Douglas Dunyan of Phoenix says, "I like taking tests."

We're all a little like him, a quick survey of my fellow Mensa hopefuls reveals. Amanda Bowling, 22, of Gilbert was in gifted classes in high school. Phoenix's Kevin Tew, 35, tested out of so many subjects he was able to start college as a mid-year sophomore. ASU student Amy Woods aced her SATs and she can program her VCR without reading the instructions.

Mensa is an international group whose members all have high IQs. The actress Geena Davis is a member. So is the CEO of the Ford Motor Company. "We also have convicted felons doing life," says Phoenix Mensan Peter Moskovis, a retired administrator and teacher. "It's not a pompous. We're the most democratic group, in the world. The only thing we care about is if you're bright."

To join American Mensa, you must test in the smartest 2 percent nationwide. (For information on joining, call Moskovis at 866-3519.) A poster taped to the board in the exam room says, "One out of 50 people qualifies for American Mensa - are you the one?"

Noah Plumb, 21, wants to know. "I come from a pretty intelligent family and at times I think I'm really intelligent, but my self-esteem is really low," says Noah, a part-time preschool teacher and college student from Phoenix. "This is a neutral way to find out for sure."

I'm here because' although I was in gifted classes as an elementary school kid, in the qualifying tests I scored a few points below the cut-off mark. But my brother, the computer genius, was off the charts. The teachers in the Paradise Valley School District must have believed it would create family discord if Chris got in and I didn't. Some 20 years later, I want to find out if I'm still the dumbest of the smart people.

The exam last Sunday was the first national testing day in American Mensa's 38-year-old history, part of the organization's recruitment drive. It seems smart people are becoming extinct - Mensa membership has fallen off. The Greater Phoenix chapter, for example, is down to some 700 members from 800.

Once they join, paying $45 annual dues, most members don't sit around thinking up alternative fuel sources, says Moskovis, who is 61. Mainly, they get together in various interest groups - from book discussions to karoake - and have fun, without, as Moskovis puts it, having to "dumb down."

Moskovis joined Mensa four years ago. Throughout the afternoon, in his Boston-area brogue, he salts his conversation with words like "convivial," "recalcitrant" and "métier" and apologizes for his "oratorical inadequacies." Moskovis later describes how he once was challenged for using the word "aberration" while talking to a non-Mensan. "I didn’t think it was a big word but to him it was insuperable, "he says.

Moskovis passes our the pencils and the first test, the 50-question Wonderlic exam. Filling out the personal information, I get my age wrong and have to erase it. Not a good sign. The test is a multiple choice mixture of word comparisons and math problems. We have 12 minutes.

In the year he's administered the exam, Moskovis says no one has finished the test. I finished it, but that’s because I skip most of the math problems. We get a break and go outside in the sun. Most people’s motives for joining Mensa seem to be social. They feel outside the mainstream.

"It’s really easy to notice, in general, people have no clue what’s going on in the world," says Kevin, the manager of a heavy-equipment company. I would be really nice to be in a group where you can have a conversation about something other than sports or the weather."

I work in retail, so I deal with people all the time," says Amy. "People are stupid. They just don’t get it…I just haven’t been able to find many people in Arizona that I can click with."

I can relate. Few people are aware of this, but I am the only intelligent driver in the Valley, a fact reaffirmed every time I drive Loop 202. If driving IQ were a Mensan qualifier, I would be a shoe-in.

The second exam, the Mensa Admissions Test, begins. This one has seven parts and takes about 90 minutes. Some parts are visual and some are math problems, for which we get scratch paper. I struggle over the math sections and whip through the word sections.

Finally, it's over. We collect in the lobby to exchange impressions. I spotted a mistake when I was checking my answers but didn't have time to change it, so I'm sure that will be the error that keeps me out of Mensa’s golden circle. Noah, the practiced student, kept looking for trick questions. Kevin says, "I caught myself overcomplicating it."

Amy thinks she did well, but didn't like the time limits. Moskovis explains that speed in answering questions is part of IQ.

Amy says, "Does it measure intelligence or how well you perform under pressure?"

Douglas jumps in "Isn't smart relative, though?"

Moskovis says, "And what’s smart anyway? Discernment? Perception?"

We will have to wait several weeks to get our results in the mail. I ask what they will do if if their gray matter isn’t up to Mensa standards.

"I’ll take it again," says Amy. "You can take it as many times as you want. Anyone can have a bad day."

Maybe that explains what happened back when I was in elementary school. Skip a Pop Tart at breakfast and lose a few IQ points by lunch – it doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

Does it?