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IQ tests are standardized and interpreted using percentiles and categories. A score of 100 is average, while a score of 135 or higher is in the 99th percentile. Categories like “genius” and “mind-challenged” are controversial and should not be taken as absolute authority.
Most IQ tests are standardized so that they can be scored and interpreted with the same system, providing a fairly simple way of understanding and interpreting each individual IQ score. Key things to remember when interpreting an IQ score include the percentile, the percentage of the population at or near a specific score, and the “title” or category associated with each range of scores. Also, it’s important to remember that IQ tests measure only one aspect of a person on the particular day the test is taken, and should not be taken as an overall representation of that person’s abilities and likelihood of success throughout their lifetime.
To fully understand an IQ score, you need to be familiar with percentiles. A percentile does not describe the percentage of correct answers on a test, as most people are familiar with academic tests. Instead, a percentile provides a picture of how well a particular test candidate did compared to all the others who took the test. A score in a certain percentile means that that person performed better than that specific percentage of people who took the test. For example, a person who scored in the 85th percentile would score higher than 85% of the rest of the test takers.
The first thing you need to understand about most IQ tests is that a score of 100 is average. A score of 100 or close to it can commonly be misunderstood as a 100% “perfect” score. However, if a score of 100 is average, it means that someone who scored 100 on an IQ test scored in the 50th percentile. A score of 135 or higher would be in the 99th percentile, indicating that a person achieving this score would have scored higher than 99% of the other people who took the test. Also, half of all who take an IQ test are expected to have scores between 90 and 110.
There are some controversial “categories” that scores fall into that describe the level of intelligence of people who score within that range. For example, because half of all test takers have an IQ score between 90 and 110, that range is labeled “average” by some methods of interpretation. The category titles vary somewhat, with some methods including “genius” and “mind-challenged” and others simply sticking to “above average” and “below average”. Most all agree, however, that these designations shouldn’t be taken with absolute authority, because it would be foolish to consider someone scoring 140 a genius when someone scoring 139 wouldn’t, for example.
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