But fluid intelligence, the ability to analyze abstract situations involving novel sets of rules, plays an outsize role.

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Superior mental faculties, such as language and the ability to engage in abstract problem solving, are the sort of explanations that are currently all the rage.

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But when the same test was presented simply as an abstract laboratory tool, with no relevance to ability, the scores of blacks and whites were virtually identical.

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She also prides herself in her ability to think and speak in a logical, rational, linear, detailed, abstract and conceptual manner.

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