IQ Test - Progressive Matrices

The following free, online IQ (intelligence quotient) test

  • is not professional intelligence quotient test;
  • is planned to make you have fun;
  • can be done relatively quickly;
  • non verbal, you have to find the right figures;
  • culture fair;
  • similar to Raven's IQ test;
  • the exercises are becoming increasingly difficult;
  • your answers can be seen only by the computer;
  • you can get your score immediately (please note that your score obtained by doing a professional IQ test may significantly differ from your score achieved here);
  • you do not have to register or give any personal data.

The test are provided for us by Sandor Klein from his excellent book „The Spirit of an Organisation” - unfortunately not yet available in English.

How to do the test

  • There are 18 images in this test.
  • You will find an image on the top of every page with a missing part.
  • You have to choose one from 8 small figures below the image.
  • You may think that there are more than one figures which fit the image.
  • Find the one which is the best.
  • If you are not sure than give the answer which is the most likely.
  • There is only one correct answer.
  • Do not merely guess.
  • Your score does not depend on the time you use so you may want to use all the available time.
  • While working you can scroll freely back and forward among the images by clicking on the aproppriate number and you can change your answers.
  • This test is to be completed in maximum 15 minutes.

What is I.Q.?

I.Q. = Intelligence quotient

We can measure somebody’s height in centimeters by the help of a tape-measure or somebody’s body mass in kilogramms by the help of a pair of scales. Likewise we try to measure somebody’s intelligence in IQ scores by the help of IQ tests.

Originally the IQ score was the quotient of two numbers: the mental age was divided by the chronological age. Later this was multiplied by 100 because in this way one can get a nicer number. The IQ score of an average man is 100, you can take it 100% as well.

The dawn of IQ

At the very beginning of the 20th century psychologists measured the intellectual abilities of children (reasoning power, understanding, deduction) by the help of tests including increasingly difficult tasks. They experienced that certain tasks usually were completed by every 4-year-old children but the 3-year-olds could not do them. And this led Binet, a French psychologist to introduce the concept of mental age: if a 8-year-old child completed all the tasks usually completed by 8-year-olds but nothing more then his/her mental age was the same as his/her chronological age. If the 8-year-old child managed to complete even the tasks usually completed by all 10-year-olds then his/her mental age was 10.

It was observed that as time passed the difference between somebody’s mental age and chronological age increased while the quotient of them was constant. This led William Stern a German psychologist to give the above mentioned definition of IQ. For example if a 4-year-old boy’s mental age was 5, then 4 years later when he was 8-year-old his mental age was 10 according to the repeated tests – that is his IQ score was the same: 5/4*100=125 and 10/8*100=125 on both occasions.

Measuring IQ today

The situation is not that easy because the mental age of a person does not grow after the age of 15-16 so you can not obtain IQ as a quotient.

Luckily there is a pattern one can use to generalise IQ: and this is the distribution of it. If you draw a graph of how many percentage of the people have a certain IQ score then you get the special bell-curve (Gaussian curve) which represents the normal distribution.

So a new IQ test is at first completed by relatively large number of people of different intelligence. After the evaluation of the test the IQ scores corresponding to different points achived on the test are determined so that the average point is equivalent to 100 IQ score and the different IQ scores corresponding to different points must give the normal distribution.

Results of IQ tests and personal success

General intelligence has more components. The different IQ tests measure various aspects of intelligence. So it can easily happen that the results of the same person achieved on different tests are diverse.

For example the test on our page which is similar to Raven’s IQ test can not measure the verbal intelligence and can underestimate the intellectual abilities of a person of poor visual memory. The momentary achievement depends on lots of things. This is why it is worth doing three tests of even the same type if you want to get a reliable result.

Finally you must not forget that the success of a person depends not only on his/her intelligence but other personal characteristics, the enviroment and other not intellectual factors.