How the LifeScore IQ test is built and scored

25 visual puzzles, 6 points for every right answer, and no hidden curve. Here is exactly how your number is made, how much it can move between attempts, and what it should never be used for.

By the LifeScore Editorial Team · Reviewed · Take the test

The test at a glance

Questions
25 visual puzzles: 5 types, 5 of each, easy to hard
Answer choices
5 per question, one correct
Time
12 minutes for the whole test
Score range
50 (none right) to 200 (all 25 right)
Each right answer
6 points
Guessing every answer
About 5 right on average, a score of about 80
Normed on a test-taker sample
Not yet. The scale is fixed, not fitted to a population (see below)
Clinical or diagnostic use
No

What it is, and what it is not

What it is

  • A 12-minute test of visual reasoning: spotting the rule behind patterns, shapes and sequences
  • A fair first look at how you handle the kind of puzzle that full IQ tests use for fluid reasoning
  • Language-free: no vocabulary, no maths lessons, nothing to revise
  • A score you can compare with your own next attempt and with friends who took the same test

What it is not

  • A clinical IQ assessment, or a test given by a psychologist
  • Normed against a representative sample, or adjusted for your age
  • Accepted by Mensa, schools or employers as proof of IQ
  • A diagnosis of giftedness, a learning difficulty or anything else

How the questions are made

The test has 25 questions in five sets of 5. Each set starts at difficulty 1 and ends at difficulty 5, so the last puzzle or two in every set are meant to be hard. Every puzzle is drawn in code for LifeScore and has 5 answer choices.

  1. Pattern recognition

    5 questions
    Matrices and sequences where shapes change by count, colour, fill or rotation along rows and columns.

  2. Spatial reasoning

    5 questions
    Mental rotation, mirror images, cube nets, paper folding and 3D footprints.

  3. Logical sequences

    5 questions
    Number and symbol sequences where you find the step, the pairs or the alternating pattern.

  4. Visual analogies

    5 questions
    A is to B as C is to which? The change from A to B has to be applied to C.

  5. Rule transformations

    5 questions
    A shape goes through a stated set of changes; pick the shape that comes out.

How we check them. On 9 September 2026 we re-checked all 25 questions, all 125 answer choices and every answer key, and repaired the ones that were ambiguous or wrong (the list is in the change log). An automated test now runs on every change to the site. It draws every question and every choice, fails if two choices look identical, fails if a key points to a choice that does not exist, and checks that each correct answer scores and every wrong one does not.

If you think a question has two right answers, or none, tell us. We will check it, fix it if you are right, and log the fix.

How your score is calculated

Your score is your number of right answers on a fixed scale: 50 plus 6 points for each right answer. Nothing else goes in. Speed does not change the number (it only matters because the clock stops you), and the five question types count equally.

The percentile next to your score is what that number would mean on the standard IQ scale, where the average is 100 and the standard deviation is 15.[1] A score of 115, for example, is higher than about 84% of people on that scale. Because our scale was not fitted to a sample of test-takers (the next section explains why that matters), read the percentile as a guide to what the number means, not as your measured rank among people who took this test.

Getting 9 right (104) is the first score at or above the conventional average of 100; 8 right gives 98.

Every possible result. Score = 50 + 6 × right answers.
Right answersScoreHigher than
0 of 2550under 0.1%
1 of 25560.2%
2 of 25620.6%
3 of 25681.6%
4 of 25744.2%
5 of 25809.1%
6 of 258618%
7 of 259230%
8 of 259845%
9 of 2510461%
10 of 2511075%
11 of 2511686%
12 of 2512293%
13 of 2512897%
14 of 2513499%
15 of 25140100%
16 of 25146100%
17 of 2515299.9%+
18 of 2515899.9%+
19 of 2516499.9%+
20 of 2517099.9%+
21 of 2517699.9%+
22 of 2518299.9%+
23 of 2518899.9%+
24 of 2519499.9%+
25 of 2520099.9%+

Norms, and why ours are not finished

A professional IQ test is normed. The publisher gives it to a large sample built to match the population by age, sex, region and education, then sets the scale so that sample averages 100.[2, 3] That is what makes a percentile a real rank: it tells you how you compare with people like you.

Our scale was set by design, not from a norm sample. That has three consequences, and we would rather you hear them from us:

  • The average of people who take this test is not fixed at 100. People who choose to take an online IQ test are not a random slice of the population, and the scale has not been fitted to them.
  • It is not age-normed. A 13-year-old and a 40-year-old are scored on the same scale, so younger teens tend to score lower than they would on an age-normed test.
  • Very high scores are not rarities you can quote. Above 145 the standard curve puts fewer than 1 person in 700, but a 25-question test cannot tell people apart that finely. Read anything above 145 as "very high on this test".

Fitting the scale to real results needs a large, well-described sample and an independent check against an established test. Until we have done that, this page will keep saying so.

How much a score can move

Every test score has a margin of error. Professional tests publish a reliability coefficient from large studies. We have not run a reliability study yet, so we do not quote one. What we can do is work out the error that comes from the test being short.

Using the standard binomial error model for a test of right-or-wrong items,[4, 2] someone who would get half the questions right on average gets 12.5 right, give or take about 2.5 answers from one sitting to the next. On our scale that is about 15 points either way, and nine times in ten a fresh sitting would land within about 25 points. Near the very top or bottom of the scale the wobble is smaller, because there is less room to move.

That is a wide band, and it is the honest price of a 12-minute test. A full professional battery takes an hour or more and narrows the margin to a few points. If two people score 116 and 122 here, the test has not shown that one reasons better than the other.

Taking it again

Second attempts score higher, on any test. A meta-analysis of 122 studies found clear gains on retest that level off after about the third attempt.[5] On a 25-question test, remembering even two puzzles is worth 12 points. If you retake it, leave a few months and treat the first result as your baseline.

Who it is for

  1. Curious adults and older teens

    You want a quick, honest read on your visual reasoning and a number to compare with friends or with your own next attempt.

  2. People preparing for a reasoning test

    Matrix and sequence puzzles appear on many job and school tests. For a timed practice run at a specific exam, the aptitude practice tests are closer to the real thing.

  3. Not for decisions about you

    Schools, doctors and employers use supervised tests. Mensa accepts scores only from tests on its approved list,[6] and our result is not one of them. Under 16? Ask a parent first; our service is not aimed at children.

Version history

  1. Method page published

    14 October 2026
    This page, written from the scoring code itself. No change to questions or scoring.

  2. Wording corrected sitewide

    2 October 2026
    Every "free", "accurate" and "scientifically validated" claim about the test removed, because we could not support them.

  3. Full question audit

    9 September 2026
    All 25 questions, 125 answer choices and keys checked; ambiguous questions repaired. The scoring scale was deliberately left unchanged until real data allow it to be calibrated.

Ready to see your number?

25 puzzles, 12 minutes, scored exactly as this page describes.

Take the IQ test

25 questions · about 12 minutes

References

  1. 1.Wikipedia contributors (2026). Normal distribution. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
  2. 2.American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education (2014). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. AERA (open access edition, 2021). testingstandards.net
  3. 3.Pearson Assessments (2024). WAIS-5 overview brochure. Pearson. pearsonassessments.com
  4. 4.Lord, F. M., & Novick, M. R. (1968). Statistical Theories of Mental Test Scores. Addison-Wesley. ets.org
  5. 5.Scharfen, J., Peters, J. M., & Holling, H. (2018). Retest effects in cognitive ability tests: A meta-analysis. Intelligence, 67, 44-66. doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2018.01.003
  6. 6.American Mensa (2026). Qualifying test scores. American Mensa. us.mensa.org

How we choose sources is in our editorial policy. Every source we cite is on the sources page. Spotted an error? Tell us.