IQ 108

About 68% of people score between 85 and 115, and 108 sits inside that range, 8 points above the exact midpoint of 100. Around 70% of people score at or below 108 and 30% score higher. It sits 8 points past the 100 mark and 7 short of 115.

Within this range, scores a few points apart are closer together than the test's own margin of error. A 105 and a 111 could easily be the same person on different days.

Most of the difference between people with average scores comes from other things: knowledge, experience, habits and how often they practise the kind of thinking a task needs.

In daily life a 108 does not show up as a limit or an edge. It means that on fast, unfamiliar puzzles you tend to be a little quicker or more accurate than the median adult, by 8 points or 0.53 of a standard deviation.

Most jobs, including skilled and professional ones, are done well by people right across this range. Employers select on experience, reliability and communication far more than on any test score.

School results in this range depend heavily on teaching, effort and interest. The same score turns up in students with top grades and in students who struggle.

The most useful thing to do with a 108 is not to chase a higher number but to work with how you think best. A few habits help at any score:

• Learn in the format that suits you. Some people learn fastest by doing, others by reading or by talking it through.
• Go deep in one area. Expertise lets people reason quickly in their own field whatever their overall score.
• Play to your pattern. If visual puzzles felt easier than number ones, that is useful information about how you learn.

If IQ follows the standard bell curve, 30% of people score 108 or higher. Here is what that share means across whole populations:

Going from 103 to 108 makes a score 1.4 times rarer, and going on to 113 multiplies the rarity by another 1.5. Near 108, each single point adds about 8% to the rarity.

What your 108 could really be. Treat any single score as the centre of a range. For a good supervised test, about 5 points either side is typical, so 108 really means somewhere from 103 to 113. Online tests are less precise than that.

Which scale was it on? Score reports do not always say. On the common SD 15 scale your 108 stands as it is. If the report used SD 16 it equals about 108, and if it used SD 24 about 105. The percentile follows the converted number.

Nobody famous has a verified IQ in most cases, and retrospective estimates are only made for a narrow group.

No historical figure on this site has an estimate close to 108. Retrospective estimates cluster between about 115 and 250 because they are only made for people with exceptional achievements. That is a selection effect, not a sign that famous or successful people cannot score 108.

Our degree, university and job profiles carry rough IQ benchmarks. These are the ones within a few points of 108. The education figures are derived from admissions-test averages, not from IQ testing.

Nearby scores and the round-number landmarks, so you can see how quickly the percentile changes around 108. Every row links to that score's page.

People with an IQ of 108 typically score about 1100 on the SAT and about 20 on the ACT composite. Scores vary a lot from person to person, so the range shows where about four in five land.