How to Do IQ Testing & What the Numbers Mean

The abbreviation "IQ" stands for Intelligence Quotient which is a measure of how clever you are compared to your peers. Your IQ score is the ratio of your mental age to your chronological age times 100. Your mental age is calculated by comparing your results to how people of different ages score. IQ tests must be administered in a strict, standardized manner, which involves reading the same exact instructions to everyone, enforcing time limits and scoring everyone's test in the same way. Interpretation should be done by a skilled mental health professional.

Instructions

• 1

  Visit a mental health professional if you are interested in having your IQ tested. When scheduling the appointment make sure the mental health professional you are seeing has been trained to administer IQ tests, as not all mental health professionals are qualified. Explain to the mental health professional why you want your IQ tested. Usually there is an underlying reason, such as you are not succeeding in college as you had hoped, your attention span is short or you have received feedback from others that you have problems learning, reading or writing. Based on the problem, the mental health professional will choose the test that is right for you.

• 2

  Take a reputable test. Do not take an online test if you are interested in a reliable result; online tests likely have not been validated on a large number of individuals, the test administration is not standardized and you will not have any help interpreting the results.

• 3

  Make sure you are at your best on the day of the test. Have a good night sleep. Eat a good breakfast. Do not worry if you think you are not getting all the answers right. Each question on an IQ test is progressively more difficult -- they are written this way to measure the limits of your intelligence. No one gets all the answers right.

• 4

  Push yourself a bit on the difficult items, but do not waste all of your time on one question. When taking the test, notice that the examiner will follow the administration instructions exactly. This might seem a bit rigid; however, the more the examiner deviates from the instructions as they were written, the less reliable the test result will be.

• 5

  Make sure the mental health professional gives you a description of your overall IQ, rather than just a raw score. Particular IQ tests are scored differently, so raw scores do not have meaning unless they are followed by an interpretation. Most IQ tests convert the raw score to a standard score allowing for interpretation and comparison.

• 6

  Keep in mind that any IQ score has a range of accuracy -- a score of 100 could really represent a range of scores that you would get if the test was repeated on different days. So if you and your friend both took the test on the same day and she got 110 and you got 100 you both got approximately the same score. On the Wechsler scales, which are popular IQ tests, a standard score of more than 130 is described as very superior, while a score of 90 to 109 is considered average.

• 7

  Make sure to ask what your strengths and weaknesses are. A comprehensive IQ test interpretation involves not only a description of your overall score, but a report of how you did on various sub-tests that measure intellectual skills such as speed of answering problems, "book learning" and ability to solve new puzzles. Typically, a person will have some scores that are lower or higher than others of her same chronological age. There also will be scores that were a "personal strength," meaning you scored highest overall on these tests; however these high scores might or might not be high compared to your peers.