What level of IQ is considered normal?

The highest IQ level is for an Australian mathematician, the author of the Green-Tao theorem, his name is Terence Tao. Getting results above 200 points is a very rare occurrence, because most of the inhabitants of our planet barely score 100 points. People with extremely high IQs (over 150) can be found among Nobel laureates. It is these people who move science forward and make discoveries in various professional fields. Among them are the American writer Marilyn vos Savant, astrophysicist Christopher Hirata, phenomenal reader Kim Pik, who can read a page of text in a few seconds, Briton Daniel Tammet, who memorizes thousands of numbers, Kim Ung-Yong, who already studied at the university at the age of 3, and other famous personalities with amazing abilities.

Studying IQ with Science

Since the thirties of the twentieth century, scientists have attempted to scientifically determine the level of intelligence. The problem of studying and measuring the level of intelligence throughout the twentieth century was addressed by such scientists as V. Stern, R. Stenberg, A. Binet, J. Piaget, C. Spearman, G. Eysenck, J. Guilford, D. Wexler and others . Determining what a person’s IQ is, what indicators need to be taken into account - all this was the object of study.

Practicing psychologists put forward various hypotheses and conducted experiments to study intelligence:

determining the relationship between the processes occurring in the human brain and its responses to them;
dependence of cognitive abilities on the size and weight of the brain;
comparison of the level of intelligence of parents and their children;
interdependence of the level of intelligence and social status of a person;
dependence of the level of intelligence on the age of the individual.

Scientists also developed test methods to determine the level of intelligence. Since that time, the question of what an IQ number is - a quantitative indicator that gives an idea of thinking abilities - has become relevant.

Main influencing factors

The human mind is quite difficult to define and measure. Intelligence is a combination of knowledge, skills and abilities that accumulate throughout a person's life. Our intelligence is based on several important factors that influence its coefficient:

genetics;
feeding habits of a child in the first years of life;
education and mental stimulation of the child’s mental activity by parents;
order of birth of children in the family;
environment.

All this, to one degree or another, affects the mental development of the child.

Genetics

Scientists have long begun to explore the question of how much the level of intelligence IQ depends on genes. For more than a century, studies have been conducted on the influence of genes on mental abilities, which have shown that the percentage of dependence is in the range of 40-80%.

The level of intelligence in a person depends on the structure of the brain and its functionality. These two factors are key. Differences in the parietal-frontal parts of the brain of different people indicate different levels of their IQ. The higher the level of functionality of the frontal areas of the brain, the better it can work: perceive and remember information, solve various problems.

Genetic factors represent the potential that is passed on from parents to the child. They are little studied, but have an important function for the development of mental abilities.

Chromosomal abnormalities that are inherited also affect the level of intelligence. For example, Down's disease, which is characterized by poor mental development of the child. Quite often it occurs in children whose parents belong to the older age group.

IQ level indicators

What does the result indicate?

IQ level above 140 points. People with this level of intelligence are believed to have excellent creative abilities, as well as ways to move science forward by inventing new theories. Only 0.2% of the population has such high intelligence. For example, Stephen William Hawking or Bill Gates.
IQ level from 131 to 140 points. Only 3% of the population can boast of mental development in this range. Such people can be excellent managers, have a professional understanding of certain areas, and can become outstanding scientists and researchers. Such personalities include Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicole Kidman.
High level of intelligence - from 121 to 130 points. The value of such an IQ is inherent in few people - 6% of the population. People whose intelligence is in the range of 121-130 points can easily graduate from university and get a well-paid job, and in creative or managerial professional industries they can achieve excellent results.
IQ from 111 to 120 points. A value varying in the range of 111−120 points indicates an above-average level of intelligence. It is quite easy for such people to study at a university, and if they have qualities such as focus and hard work, they will be able to find an excellent job. 12% of the population has this level of intelligence.
The average IQ level is 101-110 points. The vast majority are people who have an average level of mental development. This is 25% of the population. It is more difficult for such people to graduate from university, but with sufficient perseverance and hard work, they will find a good job.
91−100 points. The same number of people have an IQ between 91 and 100. Having successfully passed the final exams, such people will be able to successfully find employment in middle management.
81−90 points - below average. 10% of the population has below average intelligence. After graduating from school, such people can successfully get a job involving physical labor.
71-80 points - lesser degree of mental retardation. These people (10% of the population) have a harder time finishing school.
51−70 points - a mild form of mental deviation (moronism). Such people (7% of the population) can graduate from a specialized school for the mentally retarded.
From 20 to 50 points. This is dementia. People with this disability are unable to learn, but can take care of themselves.
An IQ of up to 20 is idiotic. People suffering from idiocy are not subject to training and education, most often they are in care and cannot take care of themselves. A severe form of mental retardation, in which the individual is in his own illusory world and is unable to perceive the environment. This is 0.2% of the population.

Inability to listen to criticism

A person who cannot adequately perceive criticism addressed to himself is either overly proud or has one of the signs of low emotional intelligence. Seeing only negative aspects in criticism implies that the individual is not able to rethink his own actions, adjust his behavior and change his views on certain things and events.

Perceiving criticism from anyone as an external threat is a direct sign of low intelligence. Other individuals are usually capable of some degree of introspection and reflection. As a rule, it is possible to convey to such people the fact that the motivation for criticism is an attempt to help, to point out shortcomings, and not to offend and humiliate.

What is an IQ test?

The Eysenck IQ test includes forty tasks, which take thirty minutes to complete. If while completing a task you are unable to understand the essence of the question, then you should not dwell on it for long. You may be on the wrong path to an answer and waste your time. Hurry up to find the answer to the next question.

However, it is worth knowing that most tasks are quite solvable and you should not give up quickly. You need to show patience and ingenuity to successfully complete the task. Keep in mind that the tasks only become more difficult towards the end of the test. The vast majority of people will answer some of the questions, but no one can solve all forty problems correctly in thirty minutes.

The answer to the task is a word, a number or one letter. In some cases, you need to come up with a solution yourself. You should not write the answer to an unsolved problem at random, but if you have some assumptions, then it is better to answer the question.

Most ordinary people have an intelligence level in the range of 100-120 points.

If you score more than 130 points, you can call yourself smart, and if you score more than 150, feel free to consider yourself a genius. However, do not forget that such a test is aimed at identifying the level of preparation for solving logical problems, but it will not show your intelligence. However, after passing the test, the result will appear on your screen in the form of a unique link that you can share with friends, paste into your blog, or send to your employer.

What the scores don't tell you

I would like to emphasize that the result obtained during an intelligence test is not an absolutely objective assessment of a person’s mental abilities. Not a single technique has yet learned to take into account all individual factors that can influence the final value.

Let's remember the famous autistic genius Kim Peake, whose IQ was only 87 points. At the same time, he knew how to read from the age of one and a half years old and already at the age of 7 he knew the Bible by heart, invented a speed reading technique and could cover a book spread in 8 seconds.

IQ does not reflect:

level of erudition,
professionalism,
education,
determination,
hard work,
determination,
talent,
public value,
efficiency,
life wisdom
moral stability,
sense of humor, etc.

Age characteristics

What IQ a normal person has depends greatly on age. It is believed that peak development occurs at age 26. The moment of highest development of intelligence can vary from 20 to 34 years, depending on the conditions of the particular subject. After 60 years, the level of intelligence sharply decreases only if a person stops setting difficult tasks for himself and does not load his thinking in any way, limiting himself to standard situations.

It is accepted that the IQ level is a constant value. For children, different norms for the development of intelligence have been adopted, approximately assessing normal development. The normal IQ of a 14-year-old person is considered to be 70-80 points, but for an adult this would indicate a deviation from the norm. Thus, the level of intellectual development is constant compared to the group (by age), but when considering an individual, IQ changes significantly with age.

What IQ Tests Really Measure and Why They're Not Universal

A test very close to what we understand today as an IQ test was developed in 1912 by the German psychologist William Lewis Stern. He took as a basis various tasks and puzzles of the 19th century and tied them into his system of studying child psychology - the result was partly reminiscent of the psychological test developed in parallel by Alfred Binet. Essentially, Stern wanted to create a method for assessing the developmental potential of children, but all subsequent IQ tests (including those of the controversial British psychologist Hans Jürgen Eysenck, who popularized the very idea of measuring IQ) assumed variations for adults.

A test where you have to answer 40 questions in 30 minutes is too outdated and inaccurate. But it has penetrated so deeply into universities, research institutes, and now the Internet that it still cannot be eradicated. If you took an IQ test in school, it was probably one of the many variations of the Eysenck test. At the same time, a standardized test has not appeared for more than 100 years: there are several dozen basic versions (by Cattell, Wexler and other psychologists), as well as several hundred of their modifications - and this is if we take into account only the tests used by major scientists, and do not take adapted versions for different ages are taken into account.

Most likely, each of us has taken an IQ test, at least out of interest, but many find it difficult to answer what exactly it measures. The most popular answer is some kind of conditional “mind”. In fact, the average IQ test measures your ability to analyze new information (both using and not using old) relative to your age. In this case, the tests are specially designed in such a way that the average value is equal to 100 points. It is believed that a score below 70 points indicates problems in mental development, but the so-called threshold of genius varies greatly from version to version: somewhere it starts from 140 points, somewhere from 160.

Aikyu scale level table by points

If the IQ test results are:

1-24 - profound mental retardation;
25-39 - severe mental retardation;
40-54 - moderate mental retardation;
55-69 - mild mental retardation;
70-84 - borderline mental retardation;
85-114 - average;
115-129 - above average;
130-144 - moderately gifted;
145-159 - gifted;
160-179 - exceptionally gifted;
180 and above - deeply gifted.

Methods for measuring intelligence

Initially, the tests contained only vocabulary exercises. Today, such techniques include the following exercises: non-arithmetic counting, logical series, addition of geometry figures, recognizing parts of an object, memorizing facts and drawings, operations with letters and words.

In the scientific world, the term “intelligence quotation” was adopted and adapted. This concept was first introduced by V. Stern (1912), proposing to designate the number that is obtained by dividing the age of the subject’s mind by his biological age. The Stanford-Binet scale (1916) was the first time the term “IQ” was mentioned.

The abbreviation “IQ” is widely used in Russian literature, but domestic scientists do not translate this concept literally (translated from English as “amount of intelligence”), but as “intelligence quotient.”

IQ is an indicator that is determined after an IQ test. Coefficient is a value expressing the percentage ratio of an individual’s mental age to his biological age. Determining what an IQ level is means finding out how much a person can use certain capabilities of his brain.

Moreover, indicators of the proper level of intelligence at a certain age are calculated based on the average statistical indicators of people of the same age as the subject.

Meaning of test results

The average IQ corresponds to 100 units. This is an average figure between 90 and 110 units, which is usually received by 50% of people tested. 100 units corresponds to half of the problems solved in the test, respectively, the maximum indicator is 200 units. Values below 70 units are often classified as mental deficiency, and above 140 as genius.

IQ is a relative indicator that reflects the level of performance of a specific intelligence test. Such a test cannot serve as a comprehensive measure of intellectual ability.

Intelligence tests cannot show the level of erudition of a person, but only his ability to think, and mainly in a certain way. The more developed type of thinking of a given person is determined: logical, figurative, mathematical, verbal. By which type of thinking is less developed, one can determine the desired development of mental abilities.

Of course, a high IQ level is by no means a guarantee of success in life. Purposefulness, determination, hard work, clear goals and motivation to achieve success are of great importance in a person’s life. We should not forget about heredity, genetic data, innate inclinations and talent, as well as the significant influence of the social environment and family.

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IQ from 131 to 140

People with an IQ of 140-131 make up about 3% of the population. Their abilities are far above average. Whatever field of activity they choose, they can achieve the highest results, because they have not only high mental, but also creative abilities. Such people make excellent managers, researchers, and scientists. At the same time, they are well versed not only in their profession, but also have a broad outlook and knowledge in other areas, which they can apply to achieve success in their field.

Such people constantly monitor new inventions and discoveries and immediately find use for them to optimize their own life and work. If they need to completely change their line of work, they can quickly achieve good results in a business that they have never done before. A striking example of such a person is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in the first half of his life became one of the most titled athletes and a successful film actor, and in the second half achieved good results in politics as the governor of California.

Always prove you're right

In a controversial situation, intelligent people have a better chance of taking the place of their opponent, understanding his arguments, integrating them into their thought chains, and reconsidering current views. A clear manifestation of intelligence is the ability to look at things from a different point of view and understand them. Intelligent people are open to new information and changes in generally accepted principles.

On the contrary, people with low thinking abilities continue to argue, do not give up their position, do not understand the existing arguments, and do not notice the intelligence and competence of their opponent. This increased evaluation of oneself is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is a cognitive bias that causes less competent people to overestimate their own abilities while underestimating the intelligence of others.

An intelligent person also proves that he is right, but he knows how to listen, consider the available arguments, basing the final decision on them.

IQ level above 140

People with an IQ of 145 or higher make up no more than 0.2% of the world's population. These are the people who are classified as geniuses who have a powerful analytical mind combined with creative abilities that allow them to simultaneously analyze dozens of factors and make long-term forecasts, determine the path of development of science on a global scale, generate new ideas, develop new theories, propose non-standard solutions, determine new directions of human movement, make scientific and technical discoveries.

The most prominent representatives of this group of scientists and thinkers included Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking. Most Nobel Prize laureates who have made scientific discoveries have an IQ above 150. However, even among ordinary people, including children, sometimes there are unique ones who have superpowers and show test results approaching 200 points.

Blame others for their failures

This habit is expressive, unprofessional, and not typical of a person with a high IQ. Trying to blame other people for your failures does not characterize the smartest person. People with low IQs prefer not to be responsible for wrong decisions; it is better for them to “wallow” in self-pity or simply blame others for everything.

T. Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, says: “Don't blame or shift responsibility to someone else. If you played a role—even a small one—in a particular case and something went wrong, admit it,” says Bradbury. “Once you start blaming others for your failures, others will begin to perceive you as someone who is not responsible for his actions.”

An indicator of high intelligence is the recognition that a mistake is a chance to gain new experience. J. S. Moser from the University of Michigan, in the course of his research, came to the conclusion that the brains of intelligent individuals react to mistakes and failures in different ways.

How is a person's IQ formed?

IQ level is influenced by several factors, including heredity, environment (family, school, social status of a person). The test result is also significantly influenced by the age of the test taker. At the age of 26, as a rule, a person’s intelligence reaches its peak, and then only declines.

It is worth noting that some people with exceptionally high IQs found themselves completely helpless in everyday life. For example, Kim Pik could not fasten the buttons on his clothes. Moreover, not everyone had such talent from birth. Daniel Tammet gained his ability to remember huge numbers of numbers after a terrible attack of epilepsy as a child.

Absent-mindedness in conversation

This sign of low intelligence in adults includes the inability to maintain constructive dialogue. This phenomenon is often observed in families where adults interrupt younger generations, not allowing them to finish, interrupting their discussions and getting in the middle of the conversation.

In such a situation, for example, the father listens to the children’s conversation on a topic unfamiliar to him and interrupts them with his own comments, since the low level of IQ does not allow him to assimilate new information and reconcile it with the experience already in memory.

A little history

The concept of “intelligence quotient IQ” was first formulated in 1912 by Wilhelm Stern. This is a very famous psychologist and philosopher. He proposed using the result of dividing actual age by intellectual age as the main indicator of the level of development. After him, in 1916, this concept was used in the Stanford-Benet intelligence scale.

Gradually, people began to take an active interest in their level of intelligence, so a huge number of various tests and scales were invented that made it possible to find out its coefficient. The creation of numerous tests led to the fact that many of them were unreliable, so it is quite difficult to compare the results of different tests.

How to determine the level of intelligence? Today, in many schools, children are tested to find out their level of intelligence. The development of the Internet has contributed to the fact that people, including adults, can easily get tested online.

John Raven - creator of the test

John Raven was born in 1902 in Great Britain. He became acquainted with psychology at King's College London in 1928, then began working as an assistant to Penrose, who conducted research in the field of mental defects. Fascinated by this area, Raven tested children and adults in different places: at home, in schools, at work, using the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. And yet, Raven considered this test not very successful and the result was the Progressive Matrices questionnaire, which he created together with Penrose.

Raven was an outstanding teacher, his theories had a significant influence on the formation of the scientific worldview of many students.

Some features of passing the test

The standard Eysenck test includes 40 tasks, which take 30 minutes to solve. To complete them, a person must:

have the ability to perform mathematical operations;
have a large vocabulary and perfect command of spoken language;
have logical thinking;
be observant;
be able to highlight the main thing;
have a good memory;
be diligent and be able to concentrate.

Most problems are quite simple and their solution does not take much time. However, if during testing any question caused difficulty, you need to quickly decide whether it is worth wasting time on it. To reduce the number of incorrect answers, you need to read the task carefully and thoughtfully.

Before you start taking the test, you should make sure that:

you are not sick;
you are in a good mood;
nothing disturbs or distracts you;
you are in no hurry;
you are not hungry and did not overeat at your last meal;
you don't feel hot or cold.

The essence of the technique

During the testing process, the test taker must solve as many tasks as possible in arithmetic, logic, and spatial thinking. Most tasks have answer options from which you must choose the correct one. In some tasks the answer must be written in words.

The tasks require you to establish numerical or letter patterns, identify common parts of words, and select the missing geometric figure. The tasks are divided into blocks. Towards the end of each block, the tasks become more difficult. The more correct answers a person manages to give in the allotted time, the more points he gains.

Age characteristics

Intelligence testing should be carried out no more than 2 times in a lifetime. The first time is at the age of 10-12 years, when the child has acquired a sufficient amount of knowledge for testing, and in adulthood, when mental abilities have reached the peak of their development. A person’s IQ is calculated by the ratio of their mental development score (in points) to their age, multiplied by 100.

How is it measured?

There are many different tests to measure IQ levels. All of them are publicly available on the Internet. A little later I will provide a link to one of them.

There are two options for intelligence testing:

for children 10–12 years old;
for adults and children over 12 years old.

The average duration of the passage is 30 minutes. The number of questions and tasks can vary from 30 to 100.

Typically, testing consists of two parts:

Methodical. It was developed by reputable experts and published in relevant publications. Includes a list of questions and a scale with explanations.
Software. It is compiled based on the chosen methodology, but has a different logic and design from others.

The scoring system is the same everywhere, but due to certain local differences, test results may differ by 10–15 points.

general information

The abbreviation IQ stands for intelligence quotient, which can be translated as “amount of intelligence.” In the Russian-speaking language environment, the established expression “intelligence quotient” is more often used.

However, it is believed that in order for the results to be as truthful as possible and really be trusted, it is worth taking into account not only the results of the test itself. Other factors such as age and gender need to be taken into account.

Many also believe that the results of this test are more likely to indicate a person's aptitude for a particular type of task, rather than actual intellectual ability. Therefore, you can prepare for it by solving problems that resemble those presented in the tasks.

Immaturity of thinking

It manifests itself in the form of infantilism in a person’s views, reasoning, worldview and behavior. It is often found in adult men and women as an inability for normal communication and social interaction with the outside world.

Experts suggest that current generations of children are growing slower in terms of mental maturity than previous generations. The influence of modern technologies also leads to a deterioration in verbal and non-verbal communication skills, which undoubtedly reduces the intellectual abilities of humanity as a whole.

Is high IQ important?

There are several organizations that bring together people with extremely high IQs. Mensa International will accept those who score higher than 98% of the population (that is, two out of a hundred people). Although you will still need to take not a standard IQ test, but a specially revised one. The Prometheus Society is much stricter: their tests are designed so that only one person in 30 thousand can pass them. The organization is growing very slowly: in 2013 it had only about 130 members.

The Mensa website allows you to take part in an intellectual exercise - take a test of 30 questions in an hour. This is not a traditional IQ test or a Mensa admissions test. You are warned that the test is created for entertainment purposes only, but is based on the same questions and techniques for assessing intelligence as the real Mensa exam, which is not publicly available. Many tasks are reminiscent of the Eysenck test, but at the end they will describe in detail how to solve the questions and the most common mistakes you made. Members of Mensa and Prometheus do not have any extraordinary achievements. 68-year-old American journalist Marilyn vos Savant, a member of Prometheus and the Guinness World Records holder for IQ scores from 1986 to 1989, writes a column for Parade magazine, solves logical paradoxes, has published several books and written several plays. But you might not have heard of her at all, although according to the test results she is the most outstanding woman in history. The last Guinness World Record holder, Korean Kim Un-young, quickly mastered mathematics and foreign languages, solved speed problems on local television programs, but by the time he was 51, he also had not achieved anything truly significant. In 1990, the Guinness Book of Records stopped including IQ champions in its publications altogether, explaining that there were too many tests, they all gave different results and it was impossible to determine the winner.

While it's true that average IQs are falling across the developed world, it hasn't had any noticeable impact, says Thomas Tiddle, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and the same scientist who noticed the decline in average IQs among the Danish military. The number of scientific publications is growing, an increasing percentage of people are receiving higher education, the pace of technology development is increasing every year, and it is not very clear whether the average IQ value can influence anything other than statistics. So you shouldn’t attach too much importance to some arbitrary numbers.

The material was first published on the Look At Me website.