Mensa IQ Test: How to Qualify, and What the Online Tests Are

The IQ Report is not affiliated with Mensa in any way. Our test is not a Mensa test, is not approved by Mensa, and a score from it cannot be used to apply. The facts about Mensa below come from Mensa's own websites.

What score Mensa requires

Mensa is a society for people with high test scores, founded on October 1, 1946 by Lance Ware and Roland Berrill, who had met on a train in England. Mensa International states the rule this way: membership is open to people who have scored "within the upper two percent of the general population," which means "at or above the 98th percentile on a standard test of intelligence."

The rule is a percentile, not a fixed IQ number, because tests use different scales. On the common scale with an average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, the 98th percentile works out at about 131 (see the IQ scale page). American Mensa's list of qualifying scores gives a Full Scale IQ of 130 for the Wechsler tests and for the Stanford-Binet 5, and 132 for older Stanford-Binet editions.

The two ways in

1. Take Mensa's supervised admission test

American Mensa describes its admission test this way:

• It is "given for the purpose of admission into Mensa and not to quantify intelligence."
• It takes one to two hours.
• You take it either at a session run by volunteers from a local Mensa group, or on a computer in a private testing environment at one of more than 400 approved testing facilities.
• You need photo ID with your date of birth.
• It is not offered to anyone under 14.
• You can take a test once every eight weeks.

Outside the United States, check your national Mensa's site (Mensa Norway, for example, sends people to mensa.no for a supervised test). Mensa International's FAQ also notes that "many tests are not valid for people under the age of sixteen."

2. Send in an earlier score

American Mensa accepts scores from about 200 standardized intelligence tests taken at any point in life. The test must have been "administered by a neutral and qualified third party in a traditional testing environment." Some well-known tests count only if taken before a cutoff date: the SAT before February 1994, the ACT before September 1989 and the GRE before October 2001. A Wechsler score counts only if the whole test was given. The WAIS page explains what that test involves.

Mensa's online tests

Searching for a Mensa IQ test online usually leads to one of three things. None of them can get you into Mensa.

The Mensa IQ Challenge (Mensa International)

On mensa.org, the IQ Challenge asks you to solve 35 puzzles in 25 minutes. Mensa says it "is provided for entertainment purposes only, and your score will not qualify you for Mensa." If you score below 100, the page tells you your score lies outside the range the test can currently measure. Mensa credits the puzzles and scoring to Olav Hoel Dørum and the test software to Tedd Hansen.

The Mensa Norway test

The test at test.mensa.no is "Made by Mensa Norway" and carries the same puzzle author's name, Olav Hoel Dørum, in its copyright line. Its own page describes it as 35 visual pattern puzzles to solve in 25 minutes, needing no special knowledge or math skills. It reports "an IQ score of between 85 and 145, where 100 is the population average," and you choose an age band before you start (16-17, 18-50, 51-60 or 61+). The page states: "This test is not a substitute for professional intelligence tests, such as those administered by Mensa and licensed psychologists," and points people in Norway to mensa.no for a controlled test.

The Mensa Practice Test (American Mensa)

American Mensa sells a 30-minute online practice test, available only with a U.S. address and scored only for people aged 14 and over. It says the test "will not qualify you for membership" and "cannot be used as qualifying evidence of prior testing." Mensa describes it as an indication of how you might do on the real admission test.

Why online scores don't count

Mensa International's FAQ is direct: "online tests cannot be used for admission to Mensa." American Mensa says it "does not accept unsupervised testing as proof of eligibility," and names tests taken electronically or over the internet without supervision. A test you take alone in a browser cannot confirm who took it, under what conditions, or how many times.

The same FAQ says Mensa International is "in the final stages of implementing computerised adaptive testing" (a computer-based test that picks each question based on your earlier answers) and that national Mensa groups will publish the details. It does not say how that test will be supervised, so check your national Mensa's site before you book.

Where this test fits

Our test is a free online reasoning test: 24 original puzzles in 20 minutes, with the score on screen at the end. It works like Mensa's own online quizzes in one respect: it gives you an estimate to satisfy your curiosity, not a qualification. Our scores run from 55 to 145, and they compare you with other people who took this test online (see how the score works). If you score high here and want to join Mensa, the next step is Mensa's supervised admission test. To see what a given score means, read what an average IQ is.