IQ 89
An IQ of 89 is higher than 23.2% of people. About 1 in 4 people score 89 or lower.
Is your IQ above 89?
25 questions · about 12 minutes
Could you score 89? Try question 1.
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- 23.2nd
- Percentile
- 1 in 4
- Score 89 or lower
- Low Average
- Classification
A retest could easily land a few points either side, from about 84 to 94, and still be well within the average range.
An IQ of 89 falls in the low average IQ range, which covers 80 to 89. Find 89 on the IQ chart, or check how rare any score is with the IQ rarity calculator.
IQ 89: where most people land
If you lined up 100 random adults by score, a 89 would put you at about position 23 from the bottom. That is inside the 85 to 115 band that roughly 46 million people in the UK share.
Average is not a polite word for mediocre. It is where the test is designed to place the typical adult, and it is the level that most schooling, jobs and everyday tasks are built around.
This is the shared result of most of the people you know, from colleagues to friends to family. Nothing about it is a barrier to the things people usually care about.
What 89 means in everyday life
The 11-point gap between 89 and 100 is noticeable on a timed test but rarely in ordinary life. You would not spot it in a conversation or at work.
You can follow complex instructions, learn new software, manage money and pick up a trade or profession. The ceiling on those is set far more by practice and interest than by a few IQ points.
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.
How to get the most from your strengths
Two people who both score 89 can have very different strengths underneath. These habits help whichever pattern you have:
- Lean on structure. Checklists, notes and routines free up working memory for the hard part of a problem.
- Learn in the format that suits you. Some people learn fastest by doing, others by reading or by talking it through.
- Protect sleep and focus. Both beat cramming for anything you need to remember.
How many people score 89 or lower?
Scoring 89 or lower is a 23% share of everyone. Scaled up to whole populations, that works out as:
| Where | Population | IQ 89 or lower |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 68 million | 16 million |
| US | 335 million | 78 million |
| World | 8.1 billion | 1.9 billion |
In a class of 30, about 7 people would score 89 or lower and about 23 would score higher.
The share scoring exactly 89, between 88.5 and 89.5, is about 1 in 49. Across the world that would be about 160 million people.
Treat these as orders of magnitude, not census data. They apply the standard model to everyone, and individual tests have their own norms.
How rare is an IQ of 89?
The curve fills up quickly towards the middle. Moving from 89 to 94 adds about 11 percentage points of people at or below you, and moving down to 84 removes about 9.
What your 89 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 89 really means somewhere from 84 to 94. Online tests are less precise than that.
Which scale was it on? Most modern tests use a standard deviation of 15, which is what this page assumes. If your 89 came from a test using an SD of 16, it is about 90 on the SD 15 scale. From an SD 24 scale, used by some Cattell-style reports, it is about 93.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 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 89. 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 89.
See all historical IQ estimates or all fictional character IQs.
89 compared with nearby scores
How 89 stacks up against the scores just around it and the round numbers people usually ask about. Each score links to its own page.
What an IQ of 89 looks like on the SAT, ACT and other tests
People with an IQ of 89 typically score about 850 on the SAT and about 14 on the ACT composite. Scores vary a lot from person to person, so the range shows where about four in five land.
| Test | Typical score | Likely range |
|---|---|---|
| SAT | 850 | 700 to 1060 |
| ACT | 14 | 11 to 20 |
| GRE | 289 | 274 to 304 |
| LSAT | 141 | 128 to 153 |
| Wonderlic | 17 | 11 to 23 |
| ASVAB | 28 | 9 to 57 |
Estimates from a regression model with published inputs and stated assumptions. How the conversion works, or convert your own score.
Questions about an IQ of 89
Is 89 a good IQ?
What percentile is an IQ of 89?
Is 89 genius level?
What does an IQ of 89 mean?
How rare is an IQ of 89?
What is the mental age for an IQ of 89?
Next in IQ scores
More in IQ scores
- IQ 115 percentileOne step above average
- IQ 120 percentileSuperior range, top 10%
- IQ 125 percentileAbout 1 in 20 people
Related tools
- Percentile to IQ converterTurn a percentile into an IQ
- IQ chartEvery band and what it means
- IQ bell curvePlot a score on the distribution
Is your IQ above 89?
See where you land next to 89 with 25 visual reasoning questions.
25 questions · about 12 minutes
Percentiles and counts use a normal distribution with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. Real tests have their own norms, confidence intervals and ceilings, so treat every figure here as an approximation, not a diagnosis. Two tests often give different numbers for the same person: here is why.
By the LifeScore Editorial Team. Reviewed October 2026. Editorial policy