What an IQ of 85 means
An IQ of 85 is higher than about 15.8% of people: roughly 1 in 6 score 85 or lower. It is in the low average range, 1 standard deviation below the average of 100.
The amber band is the likely range on a retake of our test, 9 points either side. The curve is the normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
Is an IQ of 85 good?
It is a little below the middle, in the low average range: higher than about 15.8% of people. On one short test a tired or rushed sitting can easily move a score this much.
What percentile is an IQ of 85?
An IQ of 85 is at the 15th percentile: it is higher than 15.8% of people on a scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.
Tests that use a different standard deviation give the same rarity a different number: about 84 on a 16-point scale such as older Stanford-Binet editions, and about 76 on the 24-point Cattell scale.
How rare is an IQ of 85?
About 1 in 6 people score 85 or lower. In a group of 1,000 people, about 159 would be expected to score that low or lower.
How much could a retake change it?
No test gives the same score twice. The likely range is where about 90 in 100 retakes would land, and its width depends on how reliable the test is.1
| Test | Margin of error | Likely range |
|---|---|---|
| Our test (reliability 0.87) | ±9 | 76 to 94 |
| A test with reliability 0.90 | ±8 | 77 to 93 |
| A test with reliability 0.95 | ±6 | 79 to 91 |
The margin is 1.645 standard errors of measurement, which covers about 90% of retakes.
What an IQ of 85 does not tell you
A score describes how someone did on one set of reasoning tasks on one day. It does not measure what a person knows, how hard they work or what they will achieve.
An online test is for interest. For a score that counts for school, work or health, a psychologist can give a full assessment in person.
Nearby scores
Sources
- American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association and National Council on Measurement in Education (2014). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, chapter 2: Reliability/Precision and Errors of Measurement. www.testingstandards.net/open-access-files.html
First published 13 November 2026.