What Does My IQ Score Mean?

An IQ of 70 is around the 2nd percentile: about 1 in 44 people score this low or lower. It sits two standard deviations below the average of 100, at the top of the Borderline band.

Seventy is the number clinicians watch, because a diagnosis of intellectual disability needs a low score together with clear evidence of difficulty in everyday life. The score on its own is not a diagnosis. Current diagnostic guidance leans on adaptive functioning, meaning how someone actually manages daily tasks, rather than on the number alone.

It is also the score most distorted by test conditions. Language, schooling, hearing, attention and simple unfamiliarity with test formats all push it down. A 70 from a short online test is a reason to seek a proper assessment, never a finding in itself.

An IQ of 75 is around the 5th percentile: about 1 in 21 people score this low or lower. It falls in the Borderline band, below the average range but above the level usually associated with intellectual disability.

Learning at this level tends to work better from worked examples than from rules stated first. Extra time, shorter steps and concrete language change outcomes far more than the number does.

Plenty of adults who test here hold jobs, run households and are indistinguishable in conversation from people who score much higher. The test samples a narrow slice of thinking, and it samples it under pressure.

An IQ of 80 is around the 9th percentile: about 1 in 11 people score this low or lower. It opens the Low Average band, 80 to 89 on the Wechsler scale.

That makes it common rather than remarkable. The gap shows up most in speed and in dense, unfamiliar written material.

It shows up much less in practical skill, in judgement built from experience, and in anything already done many times. Those are the parts of competence an IQ test never looks at.

An IQ of 85 is the 16th percentile: about 1 in 6 people score this low or lower. It is exactly one standard deviation below the mean.

Eighty-five is a boundary the scale invented, not one anybody feels. Outside a testing room, a person at 85 and a person at 95 are hard to tell apart.

The practical reading is that new abstract material needs more structure and more repetition. Once something is learned, the score stops predicting how well it is done.

An IQ of 90 is the 25th percentile: about 1 in 4 people score this low or lower, and it is still inside the Average band of 90 to 109.

That is an ordinary result rather than a warning. Most schooling and most jobs sit comfortably within reach.

Where it bites is timed, abstract, unfamiliar work. Where it does not bite at all is anything that has been practised.

An IQ of 95 is the 37th percentile, a fully average score five points below the centre of the scale.

Five points is inside the measurement error of almost every test, including supervised clinical ones. So 95 and 100 describe the same performance recorded on two different days.

The honest reading of a single 95 is "about average". Reading it as "slightly below average" gives the number more precision than it has.

An IQ of 100 is the 50th percentile by definition: half the reference group scores higher and half scores lower.

One hundred is not a number anyone earns. It is where the test authors placed the middle when they built the norms, which is why tests have to be renormed every decade or two.

That also means a 100 today is not the same raw performance as a 100 in 1980. Average moved. The score kept its name.

An IQ of 105 is the 63rd percentile, in the upper half of the Average band and a third of a standard deviation above the middle.

The step from 100 to 105 is real but small, and it is smaller than the swing one bad night of sleep produces on a single sitting.

Read it as average with a slight lean upward. Nothing in ordinary life reliably separates 105 from 100.

An IQ of 110 is the 75th percentile, so about three quarters of people score at or below it. The Wechsler label for 110 to 119 is High Average.

This is the score most often searched together with a percentile, because "IQ 110" and "75th percentile" are almost the same statement. The exact figure is 74.75%.

New material tends to land faster here, particularly when it is verbal or numerical. The advantage is genuine and it is also modest. It predicts learning speed better than it predicts what a person actually does with the time saved.

An IQ of 115 is the 84th percentile: about 1 in 6 people score this high or higher. It sits exactly one standard deviation above the mean, the mirror image of 85.

It is a comfortable score for degree-level study. It is also as far above the middle as an 85 is below it, and neither is unusual.

An IQ of 120 is the 91st percentile: about 1 in 11 people score this high or higher. It opens the Superior band, 120 to 129 on the Wechsler scale.

Twenty points above the mean is where people start reaching for the word "gifted", usually too early. Gifted programmes generally start at 130.

What 120 signals reliably is that abstract, unfamiliar problems cost less effort here than they cost most people. What it does not signal is output. Persistence and interest do more of that work than the score does.

An IQ of 125 is the 95th percentile: about 1 in 21 people score this high or higher. It is the line a great many selection processes quietly use.

From here upward the population thins fast. Every further five points removes roughly half the people still above you.

That thinning is also why scores in this range are harder to measure. A test needs enough hard items to separate 125 from 135, and short online tests rarely have them.

An IQ of 130 is the 98th percentile, about 1 in 44: the top 2% and the standard gifted and Mensa threshold.

The same rank carries three different numbers depending on the test. It is 130 on a Wechsler test with a standard deviation of 15, 132 on the older Stanford-Binet with a standard deviation of 16, and 148 on the Cattell scale with a standard deviation of 24. Check which scale produced yours before comparing it with anyone.

A 130 from a supervised clinical test and a 130 from a free online test are not the same claim. Our own retake figures below show how far scores in this band travel between two sittings.

MensaMensa admits the top 2%. It accepts 130 on a Wechsler test, 132 on Stanford-Binet form L-M, and 148 on Cattell III B.

An IQ of 132 is the 98th percentile, about 1 in 61, on a standard scale. On the older Stanford-Binet scale, which uses a standard deviation of 16, it is the top-2% line: the same rank as 130 on a Wechsler test.

If a test reported 132, find out which scale it used before treating it as higher than 130. Very often it is the identical rank wearing a different number.

Our test uses a standard deviation of 15, so a 132 from it means the figures above.

An IQ of 135 is the 99th percentile: about 1 in 102 people score this high or higher.

Above 130 the classification labels stop doing useful work and the arithmetic takes over. From 135, each further five points cuts the number of people above you by more than half.

This is also where a short online test becomes least trustworthy. Separating 135 from 145 needs items hard enough that almost nobody gets them right, and a 33-item test does not carry many of those.

An IQ of 140 is around the 99.6th percentile: about 1 in 261 people score this high or higher.

The 1916 Stanford-Binet classification called 140 and above "near genius or genius". Modern publishers dropped the word, partly because the long follow-up of Terman's high-scoring children turned up ordinary careers about as often as extraordinary ones.

Treat 140 as a rare test result rather than a category of person. It says the items ran out before the ability did.

Yes: an IQ of 141 is very high, around the 99.7th percentile, about 1 in 319.

Odd numbers like 141 come from short tests that report a limited set of values. Ours has 33 items, so its scores move in steps of three. The step size comes from the item count, not from precision.

Among people who first scored in the 140s and then took the test again, the second score was on average 11 points lower.

An IQ of 142 is very high: around the 99.7th percentile, about 1 in 391.

It is what our test reports for 30 of 33 items correct. Before 30 October 2026 the same answers read 141, so a 141 and a 142 from this site are the same performance.

An IQ of 144 is very high: around the 99.8th percentile, about 1 in 596.

On a short test, three points is one item, not a different kind of ability. Read any score in the low to mid 140s as one band: very high, with a margin of several points either way.

An IQ of 145 is around the 99.87th percentile, about 1 in 741: three standard deviations above the mean.

Very few tests are normed well enough this high to tell 145 from 155. The standardisation samples simply do not contain enough people who score there.

The fair reading of a 145 from a short test is "very high, measured with a ruler that runs out at about this point".

An IQ of 147 is exceptionally high: around the 99.91st percentile, about 1 in 1,157.

At this height one or two items separate a score from the top of a short test, so read it as a top band rather than a precise rank. Of the people who first scored in the 140s, 56% scored lower on a second sitting.

On a standard scale, an IQ of 148 is around the 99.93rd percentile, about 1 in 1,455. On the Cattell III B scale it is the top-2% Mensa line, equal to 130 on a Wechsler test.

The Cattell scale uses a standard deviation of 24, so its numbers spread much wider around 100 for the same rank. Read the scale, not just the number.

An IQ of 150 is around the 99.96th percentile, about 1 in 2,331, and the ceiling on many online tests.

Because 150 is a ceiling rather than a measurement, it is far more common as a search than as a real result. It usually means "almost everything correct", which a short test cannot separate from 160 or 170.

Our own data makes the point bluntly. Of the people who first scored 150, then our highest score, and took the test again, 72% scored lower the second time, and their second score averaged 129. That is regression to the mean, and it is the strongest argument for reading a high online score as a wide band rather than a number.

An IQ of 151 is around the 99.97th percentile, about 1 in 2,968, and it is the highest score our test reports.

It means all 33 items correct. Before 30 October 2026 the same perfect score read 150.

CeilingA score at a test's maximum is a lower bound, not a point estimate. It tells you the test ran out of hard questions.