How to Prepare for an IQ Test (and What Won't Help)

To prepare for an IQ test, focus on not underperforming rather than on boosting your score. Sleep normally, eat, arrive on time, bring your glasses or hearing aids, and know in general terms what kinds of tasks to expect. You cannot meaningfully raise the abilities an IQ test measures in a few days, and if the test is a clinical assessment, drilling practice items can inflate your score and make the result less useful to you.

How much preparation makes sense depends on why you are being tested. A psychological evaluation, a school gifted screening, and an online test have different stakes and different rules, so each gets its own section below.

Can you study for an IQ test?

Not the way you study for a history exam. An IQ test samples reasoning, vocabulary, memory, spatial thinking and speed, then compares your performance with a reference group of people your age. Those abilities build up over years of schooling, reading and problem-solving. A meta-analysis by Ritchie and Tucker-Drob (2018) estimated that each additional year of education raises IQ by roughly 1 to 5 points. That is a real effect, but it is measured in school years, not in study sessions. (For the longer-term picture, see whether IQ can change over time.)

What you can change in the short term is how close your score comes to your actual ability on the day. Fatigue, illness, anxiety, misread instructions, and losing several minutes on one item all push a score down. Removing those is legitimate preparation, and it is most of what this article covers.

Practice effects: why familiarity raises scores

Taking the same or a similar test a second time tends to raise scores even when nothing about your ability has changed. In a meta-analysis of retesting on cognitive ability tests used in selection, Hausknecht and colleagues (2007) found an average gain of about a quarter of a standard deviation on the second attempt, which is roughly 4 points on a scale where the standard deviation is 15. Gains were larger when people had been coached. A later meta-analysis by Scharfen, Peters and Holling (2018) reached a similar conclusion: gains keep growing over the first two or three retakes and then level off.

These gains come from knowing the format, having ready-made strategies for item types, and feeling less anxious. They do not reflect a smarter person. That is why clinicians ask whether you have been tested recently and usually avoid repeating the same instrument within a short interval: a retest score can overstate ability.

Preparing for a clinical or psychological assessment

If a psychologist is giving you an individual test such as the WAIS-5 (adults), the WISC-V (children), or the Stanford-Binet Fifth Edition, the purpose is usually an ADHD or learning-disability evaluation, an assessment after a brain injury or illness, eligibility for services, or documentation of giftedness. In every one of those cases the goal is an accurate picture, not a high number. An inflated score can hide a real difficulty and cost you accommodations or treatment you need.

So don't hunt for leaked items or practice versions of the actual test. Psychologists are ethically required to protect test materials (Standard 9.11 of the APA Ethics Code), and prior exposure to the items can make the results uninterpretable. What does help:

• Sleep normally the night before. A meta-analysis by Lim and Dinges (2010) found that short-term sleep deprivation reliably impairs cognition, with the clearest effects on attention and vigilance and smaller but measurable effects on working memory. Attention and working memory feed into many IQ subtests, although the same review found little reliable effect on reasoning tasks themselves.
• Take your usual medications unless the clinician says otherwise. If you take stimulant medication for ADHD, ask in advance whether to take it that day; the right answer depends on the question the evaluation is trying to answer.
• Bring glasses, hearing aids, and paperwork: earlier test reports, school records, and relevant medical history.
• Eat beforehand and bring water or a snack. A full evaluation can run several hours with breaks. Ask how long to expect.
• Tell the examiner if you are ill, in pain, or slept badly. They can reschedule, or at least note it when interpreting your scores.
• Ask if you don't understand an instruction. Examiners follow scripted rules about what they may repeat, but they would rather know.

Expect to reach questions you can't answer. On most individually administered subtests, items get harder until you miss several in a row, so everyone ends on items they can't solve. That is how the test finds your level, not a sign that it is going badly.

Preparing a child for a gifted screening

Many US school districts screen for gifted and talented programs with group ability tests, sometimes followed by individual testing for children near the cutoff. Two common examples are the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), which has verbal, quantitative and nonverbal sections, and the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT), which uses shape-based matrix puzzles designed to reduce the role of language. Both are given to groups, both have time limits, and both compare a child with a norm group of same-age peers.

A sizable test-prep industry sells practice booklets for these tests, and familiarity does raise scores. That is exactly the problem. A child who has drilled matrix puzzles for weeks may qualify for a program pitched at a pace that doesn't suit them, and the score no longer tells the school what it was meant to. Reasonable preparation looks like this:

• Explain in a sentence or two what will happen: "You'll do some puzzles and questions with your class. Some are hard for everyone. Just do your best."
• If the test is on a tablet or uses a bubble sheet, make sure your child has seen that kind of format, so the mechanics aren't a surprise.
• Keep the routine normal: usual bedtime, breakfast, no big buildup.
• Tell the school ahead of time about any vision, hearing, language or attention issue.

Over years rather than weeks, the things that build the abilities these tests sample are ordinary: reading together, talking through problems, games and puzzles played for fun, and good schooling. A screening score is one data point. This article is not educational or medical advice; if you are weighing a placement decision or worried about a learning difficulty, talk with the school psychologist.

Preparing for an online IQ test

Online tests are low stakes, so the main goal is a fair reading. Set aside uninterrupted time in a quiet room, silence notifications, and use a screen large enough to see figure puzzles clearly. Take the test once, honestly, without looking things up or asking someone else. Repeating the same test raises your score through practice effects and tells you less each time.

It also helps to know what kind of number you will get. If you take the free test on this site, you get an estimated IQ — your position among other people who have taken it, converted to the mean-100 scale and shown with a range — rather than a clinically normed IQ; the methodology page explains why. Many online tests don't say how their scores were derived at all, which is worth checking before you take any result seriously (see how accurate IQ tests are).

What kinds of questions to expect

Knowing the broad formats reduces surprise without teaching you the answers. Most modern tests sample several of these abilities:

For worked examples of each format, see types of IQ questions.

Pacing and test-day tactics

• On timed group tests, don't get stuck. If one item is taking far longer than the rest, make your best guess and move on. Check the instructions, but on most ability tests a wrong answer and a blank score the same.
• On individual clinical tests, let the examiner set the pace. You will be told which items are timed. Otherwise, answer when you are ready.
• Check the whole pattern. On matrix and series items, a common error is choosing an option that fits one row or one step but not all of them.
• Give complete verbal answers. On vocabulary and similarities items, examiners score what you actually say, so a fuller explanation can earn more credit than a one-word reply.
• Expect some nerves. Mild anxiety is normal and usually fades after the first few items. If anxiety is severe enough that it regularly derails tests, mention it to the examiner beforehand.

What won't help

Brain-training apps, "nootropic" supplements, and late-night cramming are not effective IQ preparation. A large review of brain-training research by Simons and colleagues (2016) found that people improve on the specific tasks they practice, but that evidence for transfer to broader cognitive ability or everyday functioning is weak. A test day is also not the time to try a new supplement or double your usual coffee; stick with what your body is used to.

Once you have a score, the useful next step is reading it correctly, including its margin of error. Our guide to interpreting your IQ results covers that.