Why we built
IQ Metrics.
Most people never measure how they actually think. We are an initiative of the International Intelligence Federation, built to replace that guess with a measurement — your score, your percentile, and what the number is actually made of.
A score is a starting point, not a verdict
Most people carry an assumption about their own reasoning that nobody ever tested. It came from a school report, a job interview, or a single remark at sixteen — and it has been quietly steering decisions ever since. Which subjects felt possible. Which roles felt like a stretch. Whether it was worth applying at all.
That assumption is rarely accurate, and it is almost never specific. It says something vague like “I’m not really a numbers person” when the truth might be that spatial reasoning is a genuine strength and speed under time pressure is the actual weak point. Those are different problems with different answers.
We built IQ Metrics with the International Intelligence Federation to replace the assumption with a measurement. Every assessment is scored against the standard population distribution, so what comes back is more than a number: the percentile that shows where it sits, and the breakdown that shows how you arrived there.
People come to us for very different reasons. Some are preparing for an aptitude stage in a hiring process and want to know what they are walking into. Some are supporting an application and want something concrete to put alongside a transcript. Plenty simply want to settle a question they have been carrying since school. All of those are good reasons, and the assessment is the same one in every case.
What you do with it afterwards is the interesting part.
How the test works →Four abilities, scored separately
A single figure hides more than it reveals. Two people can score identically and have arrived there by completely different routes — one carried by pattern recognition, the other by spatial reasoning. So we score each ability on its own, and show you all four.
Pattern recognition
Given a sequence or a grid that follows a rule, can you work out the rule and predict what comes next? This is the ability behind spotting a trend before it is obvious, noticing that two problems share a shape, and learning a system quickly by inferring its logic rather than memorising its steps.
Abstract reasoning
Reasoning about relationships with no real-world content attached — pure structure. It is the closest thing to a measure of raw problem solving, because it cannot be answered from memory, vocabulary or education. You either see the relationship or you work it out from scratch.
Spatial orientation
Holding an object in mind and rotating, folding or reassembling it without touching it. This shows up in engineering, design, surgery, navigation and anything involving a diagram — and it is one of the most common places people underestimate themselves, because school rarely tests it directly.
Visual perception
Separating signal from noise: finding the shape that matters inside a busy field, spotting the element that breaks the rule, and holding detail accurately while surrounding information competes for attention. It underpins proofreading, quality control, diagnosis and reading a crowded chart.
Your score is a position, not a total
An IQ score is not the number of questions you answered correctly. It is a description of where your performance sits relative to everyone else’s.
Scores are placed on the standard distribution used throughout cognitive assessment: an average of 100, with a standard deviation of 15. Roughly 68% of people fall between 85 and 115 — the shaded band. The further from the centre a score sits, the rarer it is, which is why small differences near the middle mean far less than small differences at the edges.
This is why the percentile matters more than people expect. A score of 115 does not mean “15% better than average” — it means roughly 84% of people score below it. The scale is not linear in the way everyday numbers are, and reading it as though it were is the single most common misunderstanding we see.
It is also why we report a range of information rather than one figure. Your result includes the score itself, the percentile that places it, and the four ability scores that produced it. Two people at 118 can have completely different profiles underneath, and the profile is usually the part worth acting on.
Conditions matter too. The assessment is designed to be taken in one sitting, without interruption, in the ten to twenty minutes it takes most people. Taken tired, distracted or in pieces, it measures those conditions as much as it measures you.
Reading your result
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below 70 | Well below average | ~2% | Reasoning tasks of this type are likely to be effortful. A single online test is not a diagnosis. |
| 70 – 84 | Below average | ~14% | Below the typical band, though performance often varies widely across the four abilities. |
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. Within it, your ability breakdown says far more than the score. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~14% | Roughly the top one in six. Strong reasoning, usually with one or two standout abilities. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | Approximately the top 2%. Scores here are uncommon and worth confirming with a second attempt. |
| 145 and above | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Very rare. At this end of the curve the measurement is least precise, by definition. |
Shares are the proportions implied by a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, rounded. They describe the scale itself, not the population of any one country.
The test measures conditions too
This is the part almost nobody mentions. A reasoning test does not float free of the room you take it in — it records your performance on that day, in that state, on that screen. Most of the variation we see between two attempts by the same person has nothing to do with ability.
| Factor | Why it matters | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Interruptions | Every break costs you the thread of the current item and the momentum of the ones before it. Timed reasoning punishes restarts more than most tasks. | Take it in one sitting. Silence notifications first. |
| Tiredness | Working memory is the first thing fatigue takes, and working memory is what abstract items lean on hardest. | Take it when you are alert, not at the end of a long day. |
| Screen size | Visual and spatial items involve comparing shapes. A cramped screen makes that comparison harder than it should be. | A larger screen helps. Any device works, but give yourself room. |
| Rushing the start | Early items set your pace. People who skim the first few often misread the format and lose points to carelessness rather than difficulty. | Read the first two or three items slowly, then settle in. |
| Familiarity | Anyone who has met this style of question before has a genuine advantage on the first attempt. It fades once the format stops being new. | If it is your first reasoning test, treat attempt one as a warm-up. |
None of this is a trick to inflate a score. Removing avoidable interference is what makes a result worth having — a number produced while distracted is measuring the distraction.
Not a number. A picture.
Everything arrives at once, the moment the assessment is scored. There is nothing to wait for and nothing to book.
| Your IQ score On the standard scale, calculated from your answers. |
|
| Your percentile The share of test takers you scored above. |
|
| Four ability scores Pattern recognition, abstract reasoning, spatial orientation and visual perception, each rated on its own. |
|
| A full performance report A downloadable PDF setting out the breakdown behind your result. |
|
| A printable certificate Issued in the name you entered, yours to keep, print or attach. |
Most people read the breakdown for longer than they look at the score. That is usually the moment the exercise stops being a curiosity and starts being useful.
What a score is not
We would rather set the expectation properly than have you read more into a number than it can carry. Three things worth knowing before you start.
It is not a measure of your worth
Reasoning under timed, abstract conditions is one narrow slice of what a mind does. It says nothing about judgement, creativity, persistence, empathy or craft — and those decide most outcomes that matter.
It is not a fixed number
Results move with sleep, stress, practice, environment and how seriously you took the first five questions. A single sitting is a snapshot. Two sittings a week apart tell you more than one ever will.
It is not a clinical assessment
This is an online reasoning test, not a supervised diagnostic instrument. It is not a substitute for a professional evaluation and should never be used as one.
What we hold to
We build around you
You are not a data point to us. We start from what you are actually trying to find out, then shape the assessment and the report around that — so the answer is useful the day you get it, not filed away and forgotten.
We don’t do “good enough”
Alongside IIF, we hold this assessment to a standard the category does not require. Questions are written to tell people apart, not to flatter everyone who takes them. A test that everybody passes measures nothing.
We keep sharpening it
Behind IQ Metrics is a team of psychologists, assessment specialists and IQ experts who refine the instrument continuously. A test that never changes is a test that slowly stops being accurate.
Success is achieved through collaboration and the pursuit of intellectual excellence.
in partnership with IIF
The people behind it
IQ Metrics was built by people who do this for a living — and who care what the number means after you close the tab.
Our research
Grounded in cognitive science
Together with IIF, we are committed to supporting your cognitive growth. The assessment draws on reasoning domains that cognitive testing has relied on for decades, and scores each one separately rather than folding everything into a single figure.
That structure is deliberate. It is what lets the report tell you where you were strong and where you lost ground, instead of handing you one number and leaving you to guess why.
Leadership team
Who sets the standard
Our leadership team, with IIF, sets the direction of IQ Metrics and the standard the assessment is held to. As cognitive assessment develops, the test develops with it — new items are trialled, weak ones are retired, and the scoring is checked against the distribution it claims to use.
Our frequently asked questions cover exactly how the test is built and scored, and why us explains how we compare.
Stop guessing.
Start knowing.
Your score, your percentile, a certificate in your name and the full four-ability breakdown — about twenty minutes from now.
Start Test →