Signs of people who think they are smart but are not

Everyone wants to be smart because we all want to be respected, admired and noticed. But not everyone wants to put in the effort to improve their knowledge and gain experience to truly become smart .

 

Such people, whether consciously or unconsciously, try to appear intelligent. Here are some typical signs of people pretending to be intelligent.

They use flowery words and jargon.

The real purpose of communication is to convey a clear message but for people who try to appear smart, they aim to enhance their own wisdom, rather than enhance the awareness of the people in the conversation.

They often use flowery words and jargon that few people know, making it difficult for the listener to understand, even stimulating curiosity. They do not care whether others understand what they say or not. Flowery words and jargon are their weapons to trick you into believing that they are smart when in fact they are not.

 

They ask tricky questions

A typical 'smart faker' will deliberately ask questions to confuse others. For example, a professor asks a student a question. When the student says they don't know the answer, the professor smiles and reveals the answer. This makes the student think the professor is smart.

However, the professor could not answer all the questions of the students. They often avoided the issue or just answered vaguely. Of course, as professors, they also knew a little. But the fact that they deliberately asked difficult questions from their limited knowledge was only to cover up their own weaknesses.

They are fake

People who pretend to be smart often flaunt whatever knowledge they have, almost solely for the purpose of advertising their "fake" high intelligence. However, when tested on knowledge, the results are completely opposite to what they try to show others.

The gap between knowledge level and test results is too large, which is an easy to recognize sign of someone pretending to be smart.

They cannot go into details.

Smart people share wisdom in the form of obvious knowledge. However, when it comes to the nitty gritty details, they are speechless.

This is why Elon Musk often asks candidates to tell him about the toughest problems they have solved and how they solved them. Musk says that people who actually solve problems know exactly how they solved them. They know the details. People who pretend to solve problems may talk a little bit, but then get stuck.

They see people smarter than them as a threat.

Truly intelligent people enjoy learning from others. On the other hand, people who pretend to be intelligent feel threatened by those who know more than them, because they worry that they will be exposed.