Question
What is an IQ score out of?
Short answer
An IQ score is not out of anything. It is not a mark out of 100 or 200. It is a position on a scale where the average for your age is 100 and each 15 points is one standard deviation. About 95% of people score between 70 and 130, and very few score above 145.
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Why the question makes sense, and why the answer is no
Most scores we see are out of something: 18 out of 20 on a quiz, 85% on an exam. An IQ looks like that kind of number but works differently. Your answers are compared with a large reference sample of people your own age, and the result is placed on a scale with mean 100 and standard deviation 15 (Wikipedia: Intelligence quotient). The number tells you where you stand among people, not what fraction of questions you got right.
What the numbers cover
| Range | Share of people |
|---|---|
| 85 to 115 | about 68% |
| 70 to 130 | about 95% |
| 55 to 145 | about 99.7% |
These shares come from the normal curve (the 68-95-99.7 rule). Scores outside 55 to 145 exist but are rare, and tests measure them with less precision.
Try one · Quantitative Reasoning
Which number comes next?
18, 44, 23, 43, 28, ?
Tap the option you think is right, or show the answer.
Show the answer
The next number is 42 (option 5).
How to solve it
- The gaps jump around, so look at every other number.
- The 1st, 3rd, 5th numbers (18, 23, 28) go up by 5 each time.
- The 2nd, 4th, 6th numbers (44, 43) go down by 1 each time.
- The missing number continues the second series: 43 - 1 = 42.
That was 1 puzzle. The full test has 25.
Raw score vs IQ
There is a number on most tests that is out of something: the raw score, the count of items you got right. On the IQ Octopus test that would be out of 25. But the raw score is only the starting point. Scoring turns it into an estimated IQ that accounts for how hard the items were and how people your age perform. See raw score and how IQ is calculated.
Related questions
If you want the share of people above or below a specific score, use the IQ percentile calculator. For the ends of the scale, read the highest possible IQ and the lowest possible IQ, and is an IQ score a percentage.
Sources
- Intelligence quotient. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
- 68-95-99.7 rule. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rule