WAIS IQ Test: What the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Is

What the WAIS is

Pearson describes the WAIS-5 as "an individually administered clinical instrument for assessing cognitive ability." It covers ages 16 years 0 months to 90 years 11 months and produces an overall IQ score plus scores for five areas of ability.

The edition matters, because each one has new norms (the reference group your score is compared with):

• WAIS-IV: published 2008, norms collected in 2007 and 2008.
• WAIS-5: published 2024, norms collected in 2023 and 2024 from a sample that Pearson says matches the most current census on five key demographic variables.

Scores drift as norms age, which is one reason publishers replace them (see the Flynn effect and re-norming).

What it measures

The WAIS-5 is built around five areas of ability, each with its own index score. Ten primary subtests, two per area, produce the five primary index scores:

The Full Scale IQ (FSIQ), the overall score most people mean by "IQ," comes from seven subtests. The test can also produce 15 ancillary index scores from different groupings of subtests, such as a General Ability Index and a Nonverbal Index. There are secondary subtests too, including Information, Arithmetic and four that are new to the WAIS: Set Relations, Naming Speed Quantity, Symbol Span and Spatial Addition.

Index scores and the FSIQ use the standard IQ metric: Pearson's technical report gives composites a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The IQ scale page shows what share of people falls in each range.

How long it takes

Pearson gives these completion times for the WAIS-5:

• about 45 minutes for the seven subtests needed for the FSIQ,
• about 60 minutes for the ten primary index subtests.

That is shorter than the WAIS-IV, which Pearson lists at 70 minutes for its core subtests. If the examiner gives secondary subtests as well, testing takes longer.

Who can give it

Pearson sells the WAIS-5 only to buyers at its highest qualification level, Level C. Its policy says these tests "require a high level of expertise in test interpretation" and lists three ways to qualify:

• a doctorate in psychology, education or a closely related field, with formal training in the ethical administration, scoring and interpretation of clinical assessments,
• a license or certification to practice in your state in a related field, or
• certification by, or full membership of, a professional organization (such as the APA) that requires training and experience in assessment.

The examiner gives each subtest, using a paper kit or Pearson's Q-interactive system on two iPads, records your answers and scores them. Pearson's policy also lets some tests be given or scored by people with less training "as long as they are under the supervision of a Qualified User."

Can you take the WAIS online?

Not by yourself. Pearson does allow remote testing, but an examiner still runs it live: the examiner shares digital stimulus books through the screen-sharing feature of video-call software and runs the session. Pearson's own guidance notes that the norms "were collected via in-person assessment" and that "Telepractice is a deviation from the standardized administration."

So a website that lets you take a "WAIS test" alone in your browser is not giving you the WAIS. Pearson sells the real test only to qualified professionals, and even the remote version needs an examiner on the call. Sites that promise a free WAIS online are offering something else under that name.

How an online test like ours differs

Our test is a different kind of thing, and it helps to be clear about how:

• No examiner. You take it alone, on your own device, against a 20-minute clock.
• Narrower content. It has 24 puzzles of four kinds: grids (3x3 matrices), number series, picture sequences and odd-one-out. It has nothing like the WAIS vocabulary, spoken memory or block-building tasks.
• A different reference group. Your score compares you with other people who took this test online, not with a census-matched sample. Until 500 valid first attempts are logged, the score is a provisional estimate (see how the score works).
• Not compared with the WAIS. We have not studied how scores on our test relate to WAIS scores, so a score here is not an estimate of what you would get on the WAIS.

If you need an IQ score for a clinical, educational or legal decision, it should come from a professional assessment such as the WAIS, given by a qualified examiner. A WAIS score can also be used to apply to Mensa: American Mensa accepts a Wechsler Full Scale IQ of 130, provided the whole test was given (see how the Mensa test works). Hiring tests are a third kind of thing: short, timed tests chosen by employers, such as the Wonderlic. An online test like ours is for finding out how you do on a set of reasoning puzzles, for your own interest.