Free IQ-style test

This is an IQ-style test you take on your own, in your browser. It covers five areas that full intelligence tests also cover: reasoning, working memory, processing speed, visual-spatial thinking and verbal skills. It is not a clinical or official IQ test, which is given in person by a psychologist with norms from a carefully chosen sample. Don't use the result for school, work or medical decisions.

Online scores also run a little high: people tested without supervision score about a fifth of a standard deviation higher than people tested in a room with a proctor [3]. And a retake gains about a third of a standard deviation from practice alone [2], so your first attempt is the fairer one.

The reasoning puzzles come from a published research item bank. Each puzzle was tried by 2,561 young adults applying to medical school in Germany, so we know how hard each one is and how well it separates stronger from weaker reasoners [1]. From your answers we estimate where you would stand in that group, with a likely range rather than a single number.

That group scores above the general population, so we move the estimate onto the usual IQ scale (average 100) with an adjustment based on education statistics. The adjustment is itself an estimate, so the range you see includes its uncertainty too. Scores below 70 and above 130 are shown only as "below 70" or "above 130": a short test can't place them precisely.

The other four sections show your raw score for now, with "comparison coming". We only show a number on the IQ scale for an area once we have enough first attempts to compare it fairly, and an overall estimate only once every area has one. Under-16s see their scores without a comparison: the research groups were older.

• Reasoning. Pattern puzzles: a 3 × 3 grid with the last square missing. Instead of picking from a few answers, you build the missing square from 20 parts, so guessing doesn't help. Up to 90 seconds per puzzle. Two practice puzzles first.
• Working memory. A number flashes up; type it back, then later backward. It grows by one digit each time you get it right, like the classic digit span [4].
• Processing speed. Match symbols to digits with a key, as many as you can in a short sprint. Try the symbol digit test on its own too.
• Visual-spatial. Is the turned shape the same, or its mirror image? Based on a classic experiment [5].
• Verbal. Our own word questions: words that mean the same, word pairs and the odd one out. Everyday English, no trivia.

A few questions are new ones we are trying out for future versions. They don't count towards your score.

The reasoning puzzles are from the Open Matrices Item Bank by Marco Koch, Frank M. Spinath, Samuel Greiff and Nicolas Becker [1], free to use under the GNU General Public License, version 3. We draw them from the published item data. All other questions were written for Helibrain.