IQ 118
Is 118 a good IQ? What it means
118 is near the top of the High Average band, 1 point below the Superior line at 120. Here is what the score means, how rare it is, and how close it is to the next label.
Short answer
An IQ of 118 is above average. It is higher than about 88.5% of people, which puts it at the 88.5 percentile. About 1 in 9 people score 118 or higher, and the WAIS-IV labels it High Average (110 to 119). It is 1.2 standard deviations above the mean of 100.
Specimen · IQ 118
118IQ
- Classification
- High Average
- Percentile
- 88.5
- Rarity
- 1 in 9
- z-score
- +1.20
Curious where you would land? IQ Octopus estimates your IQ from 25 visual puzzles in about 12 minutes.
| Percentile | 88.5 |
| Share scoring 118 or higher | 11.5% (about 1 in 9) |
| Out of 1,000 people | about 115 at or above |
| Standard deviations from the mean (z) | +1.20 |
| WAIS-IV classification | High Average (110 to 119) |
| Same percentile, SD 16 scale | 119 |
| Same percentile, SD 24 scale | 129 |
What an IQ of 118 means on the scale
Modern IQ tests report a deviation IQ: scores are standardized so the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 15 within each age group (Wikipedia: Intelligence quotient). On that scale 118 is 1.2 standard deviations above the mean. It is outside the 85 to 115 range that holds about 68% of people, but inside the 70 to 130 range that holds about 95%. (the 68-95-99.7 rule)
In a room of 30 people your age, about 3 would be expected to score 118 or higher. Put another way, about 88 out of every 100 people score below 118.
The High Average band: 110 to 119
High Average covers 110 to 119 (Wikipedia: IQ classification). It is the first band above Average and holds about 16.6% of people. The name says what it is: above the middle, but still within reach of the typical range.
The band straddles the edge of that typical range. About 68% of people score between 85 and 115, one standard deviation either side of the mean (the 68-95-99.7 rule), so 110 to 115 sit inside it and 116 to 119 sit just outside. 118 is on the outside, past the point where about 84% of people score lower.
Where 118 sits inside the band
118 is 8 points above the floor of the High Average band (110) and 1 point below its ceiling (119). Of the people who score in this band, about 85% score below 118, so it is near the top of the group that shares its label.
Clinical IQ scores carry measurement error of around plus or minus 5 points at 95% (Wechsler, 2008). A measured 118 is consistent with a true score anywhere from 113 to 123, which is the 80.7 to 93.7 percentile. That range spans two labels, High Average and Superior, so the band name is the least certain part of the result. A short online test has a wider range than a clinical one, so read any single number as the middle of a span.
What an IQ of 118 does and does not predict
A score here suggests reasoning a step above the typical person your age on puzzles like these. It is a description of one test session, and effort, knowledge and experience matter at least as much in daily life.
Across large groups, the links are real. General intelligence at age 11 correlated 0.81 with exam results at 16 in about 70,000 English children (Deary, Strand, Smith & Fernandes, 2007), a review of 85 years of workplace research put the link with job performance at 0.51 (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), and a 2007 meta-analysis found correlations of about 0.56 with education and 0.23 with income (Strenze, 2007). Those describe tendencies across many people. None of them let anyone predict an individual life from one number. The guide to what IQ predicts explains what a correlation of that size means.
Same score, different tests
Older Stanford-Binet forms used a standard deviation of 16, and the Cattell Culture Fair III scale uses 24 (Wikipedia: IQ classification). The same percentile as 118 on a standard-deviation-15 test reads as about 119 on the first and 129 on the second, so check which scale a number is on before comparing scores from different tests.
Nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ 105 | 63.1 | 1 in 3 | Average |
| IQ 110 | 74.8 | 1 in 4 | High Average |
| IQ 115 | 84.1 | 1 in 6 | High Average |
| IQ 116 | 85.7 | 1 in 7 | High Average |
| IQ 117 | 87.1 | 1 in 8 | High Average |
| IQ 119 | 89.7 | 1 in 10 | High Average |
| IQ 120 | 90.9 | 1 in 11 | Superior |
| IQ 121 | 91.9 | 1 in 12 | Superior |
| IQ 125 | 95.2 | 1 in 21 | Superior |
| IQ 130 | 97.7 | 1 in 44 | Very Superior |
IQ 117 · IQ 119 · every score on the IQ chart · IQ percentile calculator · the seven classification bands
Sources
- Intelligence quotient. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
- IQ classification. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification
- 68-95-99.7 rule. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rule
- Wechsler, D. (2008). WAIS-IV Technical and Interpretive Manual. Pearson.
- Deary, I. J., Strand, S., Smith, P., & Fernandes, C. (2007). Intelligence, 35(1), 13-21. doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.02.001
- Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262
- Strenze, T. (2007). Intelligence, 35(5), 401-426. doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.09.004