A low IQ score is anything 70 and below.
A low score and other indicators might suggest that a person has an intellectual disability.
What Does IQ Mean?
Illustration by Joshua Seong. © Verywell, 2018.
How IQ Is Calculated
Historically, IQ tests have been scored in one of two ways.
The other methods involve comparing scores against the scores of others in the individual’s same age group.
This means 50% of the scores fall above and below the median.
In the case of IQ scores, boththe mean and median scoreis 100.
On these same tests, scores that fall between 110 and 119 are considered high average IQ scores.
Scores between 80 and 89 are classified as low average.
Don’t worryyou are in good company.
Most people score within one standard deviation of this average.
How Intelligence Is Measured
Intelligence tests are designed to measurecrystallized and fluid intelligence.
Fluid intelligence is considered independent of learning and tends to decline in later adulthood.
IQ tests are administered by licensed psychologists.
Scores on these subtests are then combined to form an overall IQ score.
Each throw in of test measures, scores, and interprets performance differently.
Such findings helped fuel the eugenics movement and those who supported racial segregation.
Critics suggest that such group differences are more accurately a product of environmental variables.
Such arguments over race and IQ are a reflection of the age-oldnature versus nurturedebate.
Are certain traits, characteristics, and abilities more heavily influenced by genetics or by environmental causes?
They found no direct evidence to support genetic explanations for test score differences between Blacks and Whites.
Instead, they stated that there are no known explanations for such differences.
Discrimination and systemic bias may also play a role in these differences, including educational and healthcare disparities.
It is also important to consider biases that may be inherent in the tests themselves.
What Does It Mean to Have an Average IQ?
Instead, most people are somewhere within a 15-point range of the average IQ score.
Other factors such as hard work,resilience, perseverance, and overallattitudeare important pieces of the puzzle.
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