How our tests are built and scored
What the questions measure, how your score is calculated, and what an online IQ estimate can and can’t tell you.
By the MyIQTest team · Reviewed November 2026
- 30 original questions, easy to hard
- 4 reasoning areas, mixed together
- 70–150 reported IQ range
- 0 emails, accounts or paywalls
The IQ test at a glance
- 30 questions, ordered roughly from easy to hard, with the four areas mixed together.
- No time limit. Your time is shown but doesn’t affect your score.
- Every question was written for MyIQTest. Pattern puzzles are drawn from scratch, not copied from published tests.
- Pattern reasoning
- Numerical reasoning
- Verbal reasoning
- Logical reasoning
What the questions measure
| Area | Questions | What it samples |
|---|---|---|
| Pattern reasoning | 10 | Spotting the rule in a grid of shapes and applying it: fluid, non-verbal reasoning in the style of Raven’s Progressive Matrices. |
| Numerical reasoning | 7 | Finding the rule behind a number sequence: quantitative reasoning and working memory. |
| Verbal reasoning | 6 | Vocabulary, analogies and odd-one-out: verbal reasoning and word knowledge. |
| Logical reasoning | 7 | Deduction, trick questions and spatial facts: careful reasoning and the habit of checking a first instinct. |
These four areas mirror the item types used in established reasoning tests and in the open research item bank, the International Cognitive Ability Resource (Condon & Revelle, 2014). Several logic questions are in the style of the Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005), which measures the habit of checking an intuitive answer before giving it.
How your score is calculated
- Each question has a difficulty. Harder questions are answered correctly by fewer people, so getting them right tells us more.
- Your answers are scored with an item response model. This is the same family of methods used by modern ability tests. It also allows for lucky guesses on multiple-choice questions.
- Your ability estimate is placed on the IQ scale, which has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Percentiles come straight from that scale.
- Area scores in your reasoning profile are calculated the same way, using only the questions from that area. They are less precise than the overall score because each area has fewer questions.
Scores are reported between 70 and 150. Below and above that range, a 30-question test can’t separate people reliably.
From correct answers to IQ
Because harder questions count for more, there is no fixed conversion table. This is the score you get for a typical pattern, where the questions you get right are the easier ones:
| Correct answers | IQ |
|---|---|
| 5 of 30 | |
| 10 of 30 | |
| 15 of 30 | |
| 18 of 30 | |
| 20 of 30 | |
| 22 of 30 | |
| 24 of 30 | |
| 26 of 30 | |
| 28 of 30 | |
| 30 of 30 |
Getting harder questions right instead of easier ones raises the score a little; a lucky guess on a hard question counts for less than you might think, because the model allows for guessing.
Calibration
At launch, question difficulties are set by design, informed by published research on similar items. As anonymous results come in, we re-estimate each question’s difficulty from how real test-takers answer it, then rescale. We will publish a summary of that data once there is enough to be meaningful, and we will never publish invented figures.
Limitations
- It is an estimate. A short online test is less precise than a 60 to 90 minute professional IQ assessment.
- Conditions matter. Distractions, tiredness and rushing lower scores. Take it somewhere quiet, in one go.
- Practice effects. Retaking the same questions raises your score without changing your ability. Your first attempt is the most meaningful.
- Language. Verbal questions assume fluent English.
- Not a clinical or diagnostic assessment. MyIQTest gives an estimate of reasoning ability for education and entertainment.
The brain fog test
The brain fog test is three short timed tasks. It asks nothing about how you feel.
- Simple reaction time: the median of three taps, with about 30 ms of allowance for touchscreens, which respond more slowly than a mouse.
- Arrow flanker task: 10 rounds of naming the direction of the middle arrow, with the arrows around it pointing the other way half the time. Wrong or missed answers count as slips, and slow answers lower the score too.
- Forward digit span: the longest string of digits you can repeat in order, from four up to eight.
| Part | Measured as | Weight in the score |
|---|---|---|
| Reaction speed | Median of 3 taps | 1/3 |
| Focus | Slips in 10 arrow rounds, plus speed | 1/3 |
| Working memory | Longest digit string repeated | 1/3 |
Each task is scored from 0 to 100 for sharpness, and the sharpness score is their average. It is built for comparing your own results over time. Like everything on the site, it is not a clinical or diagnostic assessment.
References
- Condon, D. M., & Revelle, W. (2014). The International Cognitive Ability Resource: Development and initial validation of a public-domain measure. Intelligence, 43, 52–64.
- Frederick, S. (2005). Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(4), 25–42.
- Raven, J. C. (1938). Progressive Matrices. London: H. K. Lewis.
- Wechsler, D. (2008). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition. San Antonio, TX: Pearson.
- Embretson, S. E., & Reise, S. P. (2000). Item Response Theory for Psychologists. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.