IQ 60

An IQ of 60 is 40 points below the average of 100, or 2.67 standard deviations. This site classes it as Below Average. About 0.4% of people score at or below 60, which in a class of 30 is roughly one person or fewer. It sits 10 points below 70.

A score under 70 on a single online test does not mean anything clinical. Only a qualified professional, such as a clinical or educational psychologist, can assess that, using supervised tests and a look at everyday functioning.

IQ tests measure a narrow slice of thinking: spotting patterns, holding rules in mind and working fast under time pressure. They do not measure practical skill, kindness, reliability, craft or creativity, which are the things most people notice about you day to day.

If you want to understand your result, think about which questions felt hard. Running out of time, losing track of a rule and second-guessing yourself are different problems, and each one has a different fix.

Think of 60 as the middle of a window. On a second attempt the same person could plausibly land at 65, which is higher than 0.98% of people, or at 55. That is before counting the extra noise an unsupervised online test adds.

Professional assessments combine several subtests (verbal, visual, memory and speed) and look at the pattern between them, not just one total. A single online total cannot show that pattern.

Time limits matter. Some people reason accurately but slowly, and a short, timed test turns that into a lower number than an untimed task would.

Near 60 the curve is steep, so a few points change your percentile a lot. Going from 60 to 63 would lift you from the 0.38th to the 0.68th percentile. These are the usual reasons scores swing:

• Stress and mood. Worry takes up working memory. People who feel anxious about tests often score below their usual level.
• Language. Questions that rely on words or written rules favour native speakers. Visual puzzles reduce this effect but do not remove it.
• Familiarity. People who have seen matrix-style puzzles before tend to do better on them. That is a practice effect, not a change in underlying ability.

On a bell curve with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, about 0.4% of people score 60 or lower. Applied to whole populations:

About 0.4% of people score 60 or lower, compared with 0.1% at 55 or lower and 1.0% at 65 or lower. Five points here changes the share by about 1 percentage points.

What your 60 could really be. Even a good supervised test has a margin of error of roughly 5 points either side. A true score anywhere from 55 to 65 would be consistent with a 60, which spans the 0.13rd to the 0.98th percentile. Short online tests have wider margins.

Which scale was it on? Most modern tests use a standard deviation of 15, which is what this page assumes. If your 60 came from a test using an SD of 16, it is about 63 on the SD 15 scale. From an SD 24 scale, used by some Cattell-style reports, it is about 75.

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

The estimates on our historical profiles run from 115 to 250, so none lands close to 60. Historians only estimate IQs for people who did something extraordinary, which skews the list. It says nothing about what famous people could actually score.

Nearby scores and the round-number landmarks, so you can see how quickly the percentile changes around 60. Every row links to that score's page.