An IQ of 100 is exactly average; 110-119 is above average, 120 and up puts you in the top 10% (a genuinely 'good' score), and 130+ is considered gifted. IQ is built on a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, so most people cluster near the middle.
A score of 120 or higher is generally considered a good IQ, because it places you in roughly the top 10% of the population. On the standard scale (mean 100, SD 15), 110-119 is 'above average', 120-129 is 'superior', and 130+ is 'gifted'. There's no single official threshold, but most psychologists treat anything clearly above 115 (the top ~16%) as a strong result.
The average IQ score is exactly 100, by design. IQ tests are normed so that the mean of the population sits at 100 with a standard deviation of 15, which means about 68% of people score between 85 and 115. Roughly half of all people fall between 90 and 109, the band usually labeled simply 'average'.
Yes, an IQ of 120 is good and places you in approximately the top 10% of the population. It sits in the 'superior' range (120-129) and is about 1.3 standard deviations above the mean. People in this band typically learn quickly and handle abstract reasoning well, though IQ alone never determines real-world success.
An IQ of 130 or higher is the threshold most commonly used for 'gifted', and it represents roughly the top 2% of people. The popular word 'genius' has no formal cutoff, but 130+ is the level required to join Mensa, and scores around 145+ (top 0.1%) are exceptionally rare. Above 130, small differences in score become statistically less meaningful.
On the standard curve, 110 is around the 75th percentile, 115 is about the 84th, 120 reaches roughly the top 10%, and 130 marks roughly the top 2%. Each 15-point step equals one full standard deviation, so the gap from 100 to 115 covers far more people than the gap from 130 to 145. This is why high scores get rarer very quickly as the number climbs.
| IQ range | Classification | Percentile | % of population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 130+ | Very Superior / Gifted | 98–99.9 | ~2% |
| 120–129 | Superior | 91–97 | ~8% |
| 110–119 | High Average | 75–90 | ~16% |
| 90–109 | Average | 25–73 | ~50% |
| 80–89 | Low Average | 9–24 | ~16% |
| 70–79 | Borderline | 2–8 | ~7% |
| <70 | Extremely Low | <2 | ~2% |