IQ 80
What does an IQ of 80 mean?
80 sits just inside the Low Average band, right on the line with Borderline. Here is what the score means, how rare it is, and why the label matters less than the range around it.
Short answer
An IQ of 80 is below average. It is higher than about 9.1% of people, which puts it at the 9.1 percentile. About 1 in 11 people score 80 or lower, and the WAIS-IV labels it Low Average (80 to 89). It is 1.33 standard deviations below the mean of 100.
Specimen · IQ 80
80IQ
- Classification
- Low Average
- Percentile
- 9.1
- Rarity
- 1 in 11
- z-score
- −1.33
Curious where you would land? IQ Octopus estimates your IQ from 25 visual puzzles in about 12 minutes.
| Percentile | 9.1 |
| Share scoring 80 or lower | 9.1% (about 1 in 11) |
| Out of 1,000 people | about 91 at or below |
| Standard deviations from the mean (z) | -1.33 |
| WAIS-IV classification | Low Average (80 to 89) |
| Same percentile, SD 16 scale | 79 |
| Same percentile, SD 24 scale | 68 |
What an IQ of 80 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 80 is 1.33 standard deviations below 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 80 or lower. Put another way, about 91 out of every 100 people score above 80.
The Low Average band: 80 to 89
The WAIS-IV labels 80 to 89 as Low Average (Wikipedia: IQ classification). About 15.6% of people score here: below the Average band but within about one and a third standard deviations of the mean.
Part of the band still counts as typical by the other common yardstick. About 68% of people score between 85 and 115 (the 68-95-99.7 rule), so 85 to 89 are inside that range and 80 to 84 just outside it. 80 is just outside it, 5 points below 85.
Scores in this range are sensitive to the conditions of the test. Being tired, rushed, distracted or new to this kind of puzzle can cost several points, and a single online session cannot separate those effects from ability.
Where 80 sits inside the band
80 is the first score in the Low Average band (80) and 9 points below its ceiling (89). No one in this band scores below 80, so it is at the very bottom 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 80 is consistent with a true score anywhere from 75 to 85, which is the 4.8 to 15.9 percentile. That range spans two labels, Borderline and Low Average, 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 80 does and does not predict
A score in this band describes performance on timed reasoning puzzles. It says nothing on its own about your knowledge, practical skills, character or what you can learn with time and practice.
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 80 on a standard-deviation-15 test reads as about 79 on the first and 68 on the second, so check which scale a number is on before comparing scores from different tests.
Nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ 70 | 2.3 | 1 in 44 | Borderline |
| IQ 75 | 4.8 | 1 in 21 | Borderline |
| IQ 77 | 6.3 | 1 in 16 | Borderline |
| IQ 78 | 7.1 | 1 in 14 | Borderline |
| IQ 79 | 8.1 | 1 in 12 | Borderline |
| IQ 81 | 10.3 | 1 in 10 | Low Average |
| IQ 82 | 11.5 | 1 in 9 | Low Average |
| IQ 83 | 12.9 | 1 in 8 | Low Average |
| IQ 85 | 15.9 | 1 in 6 | Low Average |
| IQ 90 | 25.2 | 1 in 4 | Average |
| IQ 95 | 36.9 | 1 in 3 | Average |
IQ 79 · IQ 81 · 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