Donald Trump wants you to know that he is a very smart man. So smart, he repeatedly insists, that he “hit” a cognitive test. There is only one thing: the test is not intended to be difficult.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), which NBC reported in 2018 is the assessment the president took as part of an annual physical exam, returns to the news now after Trump repeatedly argued with Fox News host Chris Wallace about the examination during a Sunday interview. . While the president insisted that the final five questions “get very difficult,” according to test instructions, the MoCA is “designed as a rapid screening instrument for mild cognitive dysfunction.”
In other words, the test is not an IQ test or anything remotely close. Rather, it is intended to help trained health professionals evaluate forms of cognitive decline such as Alzheimer’s. If you do well on the test it does not mean that you are smart, but rather suggests that, at least as far as the test can tell, that you are not experiencing some form of cognitive dysfunction.
“The total possible score is 30 points,” explains the administration instructions, available for download online. “A score of 26 or higher is considered normal.”
There are numerous versions of the test available on the MoCA website, but the English version (8.3) asks the examinee to perform tasks such as: “Copy this drawing as accurately as possible”, “Tell me the name of this animal, ”And” Draw a clock. Enter all the numbers and set the time to 10 and 5 “.
Aced
In his interview with Wallace, after being confronted by the nature of the test, Trump insisted that the last five questions were where the real challenge lay.
So let’s take a look at the last section of the exam, which focuses on “targeting.” The administrative instructions, that is, the instructions for the health professional who administers the test, are as follows:
The examiner gives the following instructions: “Tell me today’s date. “ If the subject does not give a complete answer, the examiner asks him accordingly saying: “tell me the [year, month, exact date, and day of the week]” So the examiner says, “Now tell me the name of this place and what city it is in. “
Score: One point is assigned for each item answered correctly. The date and place (name of hospital, clinic, office) must be exact. Points are not assigned if the subject makes a one-day mistake for the day and date.
While answering that question may be difficult for some, one would hope that it is not “very difficult” for the President to say what day of the week it is.
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The “abstraction” section at the end of the exam is also not what you might consider “very difficult.” In it, the administrator asks the examinee to determine which category an orange and a banana belong to. The correct answer is “fruit”.
So sure, Trump may have “passed” the MoCA test. Unfortunately for him, and for all of us, that doesn’t mean what he seems to think he does.
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