Is 94 a good IQ score?
Yes. An IQ of 94 is in the average range, where about half of all people score. It is a little below the exact middle of 100, but well within normal, and a perfectly good result for school, work and everyday life.
Where 94 sits on the bell curve
An IQ of 94 is 6 points below the average of 100, or 0.4 standard deviations. It is higher than about 34% of people of the same age, shown by the shaded area below. Scores in the 90s sit on the steep, crowded slope just left of the peak, so a few points here change your percentile a lot.
On other IQ scales, the same result would be about 94 on a test with a standard deviation of 16, such as older editions of the Stanford-Binet, and 90 on the Cattell scale, which uses 24. Why scales differ.
IQ 94 meaning: a closer look
With an IQ of 94, about 34 people in 100 would score lower. It is an average score, six points under the median. One useful way to read it: if you took ten different well-built tests, most of your results would probably fall somewhere between the high 80s and around 100. That spread is normal and is the reason a single score should never be treated as a fixed label. For school and work, a score of 94 is typical, and interests, effort and experience will shape outcomes far more than this number.
Firstborn, secondborn: how much does birth order shift an IQ like 94?
In a 2007 study in Science, Kristensen and Bjerkedal examined test scores of about 241,000 Norwegian military conscripts. Firstborns scored about 2.3 points higher than second-borns, as Nature reported. Men raised as the eldest after an older sibling died scored like firstborns, which pointed to family dynamics rather than prenatal factors. A 2015 PNAS study of three national panels by Rohrer, Egloff and Schmukle confirmed a decline of about 1.5 IQ points per birth position.
The effect is real but tiny. In Rohrer's data on two-child families, a randomly picked firstborn outscored a randomly picked secondborn from another family only 52% of the time, and even within the same family the older sibling scored higher in only 6 of 10 pairs. So if you have a 94 IQ and an older sibling scored 100, birth order explains very little of that gap. One of the authors put it plainly: the effect "replicates very well in large samples, but it is barely meaningful on the individual level". In about 4 cases out of 10, the younger sibling is the higher scorer.
Sources: Kristensen, P. and Bjerkedal, T. (2007), "Explaining the relation between birth order and intelligence", Science, 316(5832), 1717; Rohrer, J. M., Egloff, B. and Schmukle, S. C. (2015), "Examining the effects of birth order on personality", PNAS, 112(46), 14224 to 14229; Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (2015), press release.
What 94 looks like among real people
If you lined up 100 people of your age, about 34 would score lower than 94 and about 66 would score the same or higher. The orange dot marks your place in the line.
Most of the people you meet every day score within a few points of this.
How precise is a score of 94?
No IQ test measures to the exact point. On a professional test, a result of 94 usually comes with a likely range of about five points either way: 89 to 99. That range runs from the 23rd to the 47th percentile, and it crosses from low average into average.
In the 90s a few points make a big difference to the percentile, because so many people score here. That is why a gap of a few points between two tests, or two people, usually means very little.
On the Assessivo test, each correct answer is worth about 2.5 points, so 94 falls between two possible results: 93 for 15 correct answers and 95 for 16. How our score is worked out.
So if you scored 94 once, a retest on another day could reasonably land anywhere from 89 to 99. Online tests are less precise still, so treat any online result as a rough estimate.
IQ 94 and mental age in children
Early IQ tests for children worked with a "mental age", the age whose typical performance a child matched. The IQ was that mental age divided by the child's real age, times 100. Turned around, the formula shows what a score of 94 would have meant for children of different ages: working a little behind their years.
| Real age | Mental age at IQ 94 |
|---|---|
| 5 | 4 years 8 months |
| 7 | 6 years 7 months |
| 9 | 8 years 6 months |
| 11 | 10 years 4 months |
| 13 | 12 years 3 months |
The same 94 stands for a gap of about 4 months at age 5 but 9 months at 13, because the formula scales with age. That is one reason it broke down for teenagers and adults, whose test performance stops rising every year. Today's tests compare you with people of the same age instead, so a mental age is only a way to picture a child's score, never a description of an adult.
What an IQ of 94 means for you
It sits near the bottom of the average band, which runs from 90 to 109.
- You reason about as well as most people of your age, with a typical balance of speed and accuracy on new problems.
- Most courses, jobs and everyday decisions sit comfortably within this range of ability.
- Two people at 94 and 104 are closer than the numbers suggest: their likely ranges overlap.
How far 94 is from other levels
How 94 compares with nearby scores
Want a score that isn't listed, or the share of people between two scores? Try the IQ calculator.
| IQ | Percentile | Classification | Score this high or higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 84 | 14th | Low average | 86% |
| 89 | 23rd | Low average | 77% |
| 94 | 34th | Average | 66% |
| 99 | 47th | Average | 53% |
| 104 | 61st | Average | 1 in 3 |
Questions about an IQ of 94
What percentile is an IQ of 94?
An IQ of 94 is at about the 34th percentile, which means it is higher than about 34% of people of the same age.
Is 94 a high IQ?
No. 94 is in the average range. High IQ usually refers to scores of 120 or 130 and above.
Can an IQ of 94 get into Mensa?
Not on its own. Mensa accepts the top 2% on an approved, supervised test, which is usually 130 or above. 94 is 36 points below that.
How common is an IQ of 94 or higher?
About 66% of people score 94 or higher, roughly 1 in 2. In a stadium of 50,000 people, about 32,800 would score at this level or above.
Does being a younger sibling explain a 94 IQ?
Hardly at all. Large studies find firstborns score only about 1.5 to 2.3 points higher than the next sibling on average. Even within the same family, the older of two siblings has the higher IQ in only about 6 of 10 cases, so younger siblings often come out ahead. A 94 is far better explained by individual differences than by birth order.
What mental age is an IQ of 94?
Under the old ratio formula, a 9-year-old with an IQ of 94 would perform like a typical child of about 8 years 6 months, roughly 6 months behind. The idea only works for children: an adult who scores 94 simply did less well than most adults of the same age on the test.
Is an IQ of 94 normal?
Yes. 94 is in the average range of 90 to 109, which covers about half of all people. Nothing about it is unusual.
Why is 94 below 100 if it is average?
100 is the exact middle, but "average" is a band, not a single number. Psychologists call the whole range from 90 to 109 average because the differences within it are small and within a test's margin of error.
Is an IQ of 94 good enough for university?
Yes. Universities select on qualifications, not IQ, and people with average scores succeed on degree courses every year. Effort, interest and study habits make a bigger difference.
Our guide to average IQ explains why the middle is always 100, and what counts as a good IQ score puts the 90s in context. National averages, and why they are disputed, are covered in average IQ by country. Every score range is in the IQ range chart.
Behind a single score of 94 sit several separate abilities. Read about processing speed, fluid vs crystallized intelligence, abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning and verbal reasoning, or try the free pattern recognition test.
What would you score?
Take the free Assessivo IQ test: 36 questions, 25 minutes, and your estimated IQ score and percentile as soon as you finish.
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