IQ 85
What does an IQ of 85 mean?
85 sits in the middle of the Low Average band. Here is where that puts you on the curve, how common it is, and what the score does and does not predict.
Short answer
An IQ of 85 is below average. It is higher than about 15.9% of people, which puts it at the 15.9 percentile. About 1 in 6 people score 85 or lower, and the WAIS-IV labels it Low Average (80 to 89). It is 1 standard deviation below the mean of 100.
Specimen · IQ 85
85IQ
- Classification
- Low Average
- Percentile
- 15.9
- Rarity
- 1 in 6
- z-score
- −1.00
Curious where you would land? IQ Octopus estimates your IQ from 25 visual puzzles in about 12 minutes.
| Percentile | 15.9 |
| Share scoring 85 or lower | 15.9% (about 1 in 6) |
| Out of 1,000 people | about 159 at or below |
| Standard deviations from the mean (z) | -1.00 |
| WAIS-IV classification | Low Average (80 to 89) |
| Same percentile, SD 16 scale | 84 |
| Same percentile, SD 24 scale | 76 |
What an IQ of 85 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 85 is 1 standard deviation below the mean. It sits exactly one standard deviation from the mean, at the edge of the 85 to 115 range where about 68% of people score. (the 68-95-99.7 rule)
In a room of 30 people your age, about 5 would be expected to score 85 or lower. Put another way, about 84 out of every 100 people score above 85.
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. 85 is inside the typical range.
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 85 sits inside the band
85 is 5 points above the floor of the Low Average band (80) and 4 points below its ceiling (89). Of the people who score in this band, about 42% score below 85.
Clinical IQ scores carry measurement error of around plus or minus 5 points at 95% (Wechsler, 2008). A measured 85 is consistent with a true score anywhere from 80 to 90, which is the 9.1 to 25.2 percentile. That range spans two labels, Low Average and 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 85 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 85 on a standard-deviation-15 test reads as about 84 on the first and 76 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 80 | 9.1 | 1 in 11 | Low Average |
| IQ 82 | 11.5 | 1 in 9 | Low Average |
| IQ 83 | 12.9 | 1 in 8 | Low Average |
| IQ 84 | 14.3 | 1 in 7 | Low Average |
| IQ 86 | 17.5 | 1 in 6 | Low Average |
| IQ 87 | 19.3 | 1 in 5 | Low Average |
| IQ 88 | 21.2 | 1 in 5 | Low Average |
| IQ 90 | 25.2 | 1 in 4 | Average |
| IQ 95 | 36.9 | 1 in 3 | Average |
| IQ 100 | 50 | 1 in 2 | Average |
IQ 84 · IQ 86 · 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