IQ 142

A 142 beats 99.74% of people. It is 12 points past the two standard deviation line, and 3 short of three standard deviations at 145.

The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth followed children identified in roughly the top 1% of reasoning ability. As adults they earned doctorates, patents and senior roles at rates far above the general population.

Lewis Terman's study began in 1921 and followed about 1,500 children who scored roughly 135 or higher. Most grew up healthy and successful, but few became famous, which says a lot about what a score can and cannot predict.

Mensa, the best-known high-IQ society, accepts people who score at or above the 98th percentile on an approved, supervised test. On a scale with a standard deviation of 15 that line is usually quoted as 130, so 142 is 12 points above it. LifeScore is not affiliated with Mensa, and online results, including ours, are not accepted as evidence.

Other societies set higher bars. Intertel asks for the top 1%, which starts at about 135, and the Triple Nine Society asks for the top 0.1%, about 146. 142 clears the first line but not the second.

Joining a society is optional. The more useful thing a score like this offers is a nudge to seek out harder problems and people who enjoy them.

There is no single experience of scoring 142. These are patterns people in the gifted range commonly describe, not rules, and plenty of people here feel entirely ordinary day to day.

• You often see where an argument or a puzzle is going before it is finished.
• Group work can be frustrating when others need more steps than you do, which makes explaining your reasoning a skill worth building.
• Being quick is not the same as being right. Checking your working protects you from confident mistakes.

On a bell curve with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, about 0.26% of people score 142 or higher. Applied to whole populations:

Compare the neighbours: 137 or higher is about 1 in 147, 142 or higher is 1 in 391, and 147 or higher is 1 in 1,157. Each point up here adds roughly 23% to the rarity.

What your 142 could really be. If you retook a well-made test, landing at 137 or at 147 would be unremarkable. That is the difference between beating 99.3% and 99.91% of people, and short online tests are noisier still.

Which scale was it on? Score reports do not always say. On the common SD 15 scale your 142 stands as it is. If the report used SD 16 it equals about 139, and if it used SD 24 about 126. The percentile follows the converted number.

The gifted range is where many retrospective estimates for historical leaders, writers and activists land. These sit near 142, with the figures people look up most listed first. Treat these as informed guesses from biographies rather than results. Each profile sets out what its estimate rests on.

A few degree, university and job profiles on this site carry IQ benchmarks close to 142. Treat the education figures as rough estimates from admissions-test data rather than measured IQs.

The scores one and five points either side of 142, plus the round numbers from 100 to 150, side by side. Tap any score for its full page.

People with an IQ of 142 typically score about 1550 on the SAT and about 34 on the ACT composite. Scores vary a lot from person to person, so the range shows where about four in five land.