Bottom 10%
What IQ is the bottom 10 percent?
The 10th percentile on the bell curve, on three common scales, with what a score in that range does and does not mean.
Short answer
The bottom 10% of IQ scores is about 81 and below on the standard scale (mean 100, standard deviation 15); the exact cut is 80.8. That is the 10th percentile, about 1 in 10 people. On a scale with standard deviation 16 the cut is about 79, and on the SD 24 scale about 69.
Specimen · Bottom 10%
10%Bottom
- Cut at
- IQ 80.8
- Classification
- Low Average
- z-score
- −1.28
Want your own number? The test is 25 visual puzzles, about 12 minutes, no sign-up.
| Scale | IQ at the 10th percentile |
|---|---|
| Standard deviation 15 (Wechsler, SB5) | 80.8 |
| Standard deviation 16 (older Stanford-Binet) | 79.5 |
| Standard deviation 24 (Cattell Culture Fair III) | 69.2 |
How the cut is calculated
IQ scores are standardized to a normal curve with mean 100 (Wikipedia: Intelligence quotient). To find the score at a percentile, take the z score that leaves 10% of the curve below it, multiply by the scale's standard deviation and add 100. For the 10th percentile the z score is -1.282, so the cut is 80.8 on SD 15. Older Stanford-Binet forms used SD 16 and the Cattell Culture Fair III scale uses SD 24 (Wikipedia: IQ classification), which is why the same percentile reads as 79.5 and 69.2 there. The percentile to IQ converter does this for any percentile.
What a score in the bottom 10% means
A score of 81 is labeled Low Average on the WAIS-IV scale (Wikipedia: IQ classification). Labels describe score ranges on one test; they are not diagnoses. A low score on any single session can reflect tiredness, an unfamiliar format, distraction or a small screen as much as ability.
Clinical scores carry measurement error of around plus or minus 5 points at 95% (Wechsler, 2008), so a measured 81 is consistent with a true score from 76 to 86, about the 5.5 to 17.5 percentile. Questions about a learning or intellectual disability need a full assessment by a licensed psychologist, not an online estimate.
A percentile is not a percentage of questions
The 10th percentile means scoring higher than 10% of people the same age, not answering that share of questions correctly. See whether an IQ score is a percentage for the difference.
Neighboring percentiles
| Percentile | IQ (SD 15) | Gap from 81 |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom 20% | 87.4 | +6.6 |
| Bottom 5% | 75.3 | -5.4 |
See the score itself on IQ 81, every cut on the IQ by percentile page, or any score on the IQ score chart.
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.