What Is the Average IQ?

The average IQ is 100 — by definition. Modern intelligence tests use a scoring method called deviation IQ: raw performance is converted so that the general population follows a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Because of how the bell curve works, about 68% of people score between 85 and 115, and roughly 95% score between 70 and 130. A score of 100 doesn't mean you answered exactly half the questions correctly — it means your reasoning performance matched the population midpoint for your comparison group.

This also means IQ scores are relative, not absolute. A score of 115 puts you at roughly the 84th percentile — you reasoned better than about 84% of the comparison population. That percentile context is usually more meaningful than the raw number itself: the difference between 100 and 105 is far less significant than the jump from 115 to 130, because scores are rarer the further they sit from the average. Test designers periodically recalibrate scoring so the mean stays anchored at 100 as populations change over time.

Every IQ score is also an estimate. Attention, rest, test familiarity, and even question ordering can shift an individual result by several points, which is why serious cognitive assessment is never a single number — it looks at performance across multiple reasoning domains. InsightIQ's 30-question assessment reflects this: it scores you across five cognitive domains and shows not just where your IQ estimate sits on the distribution, but which kinds of reasoning drive your result.