Standard IQ Scale

Compares Mental and Actual Ages

A standard IQ scale has a built in mathematical scale that compares your actual age with your mental age. It is then multiplied by 100 to take an individual’s IQ score into the normal range. Psychology professor, Lewis M Terman called the standard IQ scale the ‘Intelligent quotient’. IQ quizzes have the capacity to give a relatively level platform for everyone to test their intelligence accurately.

Also, contrary to traditional beliefs, Terman was the first to state that he had data to prove women were not any less intelligent than their male counterparts.

These days IQ scale is no longer based on the idea of mental age being a percentage of your actual age because of the rise in criticism for its accuracy. Today, IQ scales are based on statistical evidence such as the Wechsler and Stanford-Binet IQ tests.

Based on this, the standard IQ scale rates a score of 70 or below as mentally retarded, and a score above 130 puts you in the gifted range.

Terman’s Standard IQ Scale

As originator of the idea of intelligence quotient in 1916, Terman rated his standard IQ scale under the following categories:

• IQ score above 140 puts you in the near genius or genius range.

• IQ score between 120 to 140 puts you in the highly intelligent range.

• IQ score between 110 to 119 puts you in the very intelligent range.

• IQ score between 90 to 109 puts you in the average intelligence range.

• IQ score between 80 to 89 puts you in the dull range.

• IQ score between 70 to 79 puts you in the borderline deficiency range.

• IQ score under 70 puts you in the definite mentally deficient range.

In these days, Terman stated that people that fell into the lower than average IQ ranges were people from lower socio-economic classes, Indian people, criminals, black people, and Mexicans. His observations were a basis for much prejudice and were challenged many years later and his observations were proven false.

Defining the Standard IQ Scale

Once your IQ score is determined, Terman then disseminated the scores according to the following scales:

• people whose IQ scores are between 90 to 110 is 50 percent.

• people whose IQ scores are between 85 to 115 is 70 percent.

• people whose IQ scores are between 70 to 130 is 95 percent.

• people whose IQ scores are between 60 to 140 is 99.5 percent.

• people whose IQ scores are below 70 is 5 percent.

Terman further broke the below 70 category down into levels for a more accurate result:

• people whose IQ score is between 50 to 70 are in the mild mental retardation range (85 percent of people fall into this range)

• people whose IQ score is between 35 to 50 are in the moderate mental retardation range (10 percent of people fall into this range)

• people whose IQ score is between 20 to 35 are in the severe mental retardation range (4 percent of people fall into this range)

• people whose IQ score is between 10 to 20 are in the profound mental retardation range (only 1 percent of people fall into this range)

Defining the High End of the Standard IQ Scale

If your score is extremely high, you fall into the genius range. According to psychologists, only around 1 in 400 people fall into this range with scores above 140. As with the lower end of the scale, the high end of the scale is further broken down into levels:

• people whose IQ score is between 115 to 124 are in the above average range.

• people whose IQ score is between 125 to 134 are in the gifted range.

• people whose IQ score is between 135 to 144 are in the highly gifted range.

• people whose IQ score is between 145 to 164 are in the genius range.

• people whose IQ score is between 165 to 179 are in the high genius range.

• people whose IQ score is between 180 to 200 are in the highest genius range.

• people whose IQ score is 200 or more are in the immeasurable genius range.

It does not matter how high or low your IQ is on the standard IQ scale, you will only achieve success by setting goals, working hard using persistence.