IQ Test for 10 Year Olds

A 10 year old can try these puzzles with a parent, but this test is not age-normed and it is not an 11-plus mock, so treat the result as a rough guide.

What's your IQ?

Take the IQ test

25 questions · about 12 minutes

Want the average rather than a test? The average IQ of a 10 year old is 100, at every age.

The test at a glance

Questions: 25 visual puzzles
Question types: 5 sets, each easy to hard
Time: 12-minute timer
Scoring: Same for every age, not age-adjusted
Cost: No sign-up to start. When you finish, you choose a report to see your result.

Scores are not age-normed, and this is not a clinical or diagnostic test.

Ten is the year families start thinking about secondary school. In parts of England the 11-plus is taken in early Year 6, so preparation often begins during Year 5, and a 10 year old may already be doing reasoning practice papers.

That is usually why parents search for an IQ test at this age. Here is how ours fits, and where it does not.

Ten, the 11-plus and Mensa

The 11-plus covers verbal reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, maths and English, depending on the area. Non-verbal papers use shape patterns that look a lot like our puzzles, but ours are not written to any exam format. See the IQ test for 11 year olds for how the two compare.

British Mensa's supervised test is open from age 10 and a half, so some 10 year olds do sit it. Online results, including ours, are not accepted for membership.

How this test works for a 10 year old

The 25 puzzles and the 12-minute timer are the same for every age, and the score is not adjusted for age. A 10 year old will usually get fewer right than an adult of the same relative ability. That is expected and does not point to a problem.

Sit with them for the first set, then step back.
Do not use the result to decide on entering the 11-plus. Practice papers and school reports are a better guide.

What a high score means at 10

On an age-normed test, 100 is average for a 10 year old and 130 is roughly the top 2%. At the very top, scores are less precise. An IQ of 160 on a normal curve is about 1 in 31,560, and a published figure that high for a child is a rough estimate rather than a measurement.

If someone gives you a high number for a 10 year old, ask which test it came from, who gave it and whether it was normed for 10 year olds. A figure from an online quiz is none of those.

IQ	Higher than	How rare
100	50.0% of people	Common
115	84.1% of people	about 1 in 6 this high
130	97.7% of people	about 1 in 44 this high
145	99.87% of people	about 1 in 741 this high

Computed from the normal curve (mean 100, standard deviation 15). Applies to properly normed tests.

Getting a proper assessment at 10

Educational psychologists use the WISC-V at this age. If your child seems far ahead or is struggling, talk to the class teacher or the school's SENCo first. They can say whether an assessment would help and who can give one.