IQ 82

An IQ of 82 is 18 points below the average of 100, or 1.20 standard deviations. This site classes it as Low Average. About 12% of people score at or below 82, which in a class of 30 is roughly 3 people. It sits 12 points past the 70 mark and 3 short of 85.

A score in the low 80s on one online test is not a diagnosis of anything. Only a qualified professional, such as a clinical or educational psychologist, can assess anything clinical, and they never rely on a single number.

Plenty of valuable skills are learned mainly through practice. Trades, care work, hospitality, sport, driving and music all reward repetition and experience, and people keep improving at them for decades.

Retest gains of a few points are well documented once a format is familiar. First attempts at any unfamiliar kind of test tend to be the least representative.

Think of 82 as the middle of a window. On a second attempt the same person could plausibly land at 87, which is higher than 19.3% of people, or at 77. 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.

Reading level matters as well. If the instructions or questions lean on vocabulary, anyone reading in a second language is at a disadvantage that has nothing to do with reasoning.

Near 82 the curve is steep, so a few points change your percentile a lot. Going from 82 to 85 would lift you from the 11.5th to the 15.9th 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.
• Timing and comfort. Hunger, a headache or testing late at night can all pull a score down on the day.

Scoring 82 or lower is a 12% share of everyone. Scaled up to whole populations, that works out as:

The curve fills up quickly towards the middle. Moving from 82 to 87 adds about 8 percentage points of people at or below you, and moving down to 77 removes about 5.

What your 82 could really be. If you retook a well-made test, landing at 77 or at 87 would be unremarkable. That is the difference between beating 6.3% and 19.3% of people, and short online tests are noisier still.

Which scale was it on? Most modern tests use a standard deviation of 15, which is what this page assumes. If your 82 came from a test using an SD of 16, it is about 83 on the SD 15 scale. From an SD 24 scale, used by some Cattell-style reports, it is about 89.

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 82. 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 82.

The scores one and five points either side of 82, plus the round numbers from 100 to 150, side by side. Tap any score for its full page.

People with an IQ of 82 typically score about 770 on the SAT and about 13 on the ACT composite. Scores vary a lot from person to person, so the range shows where about four in five land.