Is there math on an IQ test? How much of a score rests on it, and which tests leave it out

0 The short answer

Yes, some math appears on most full IQ batteries, but how much depends on the subtest list, and a test with no calculation is a choice of form, not a different kind of IQ. The WAIS-IV counted Arithmetic among the ten subtests of its Full Scale IQ, while the WAIS-5 builds that score from seven subtests and lists Arithmetic as secondary, according to Pearson's own documents. ACIS is one concrete option: its Quick form (15 dollars, about 45 minutes) and Optimized form (30 dollars, about 110 minutes), read on October 28, 2026, contain neither Arithmetic nor Mathematical Achievement, although both contain Figure Weights, which asks about quantitative relations between shapes. The decisive limit is that leaving the quantitative subtests out leaves that ability unmeasured; it does not make the rest of the score more accurate, and the Full Scale form (50 dollars, about 175 minutes) with all 20 subtests includes them.

1 What counts as math on an IQ test?

Math on an IQ test means three different things, and a test can contain one without the others. The first is calculation and word problems: the examinee computes an answer from given quantities, as in an Arithmetic subtest or a school style mathematics subtest. The second is numbers used as symbols with no calculation: digits are heard or read, held in memory and repeated or reordered, and the score reflects memory and attention rather than mathematics. The third is quantitative relations between shapes: the examinee works out how pictured quantities balance or relate, with no figures to compute in the school sense. People who search for an IQ test with no math usually mean the first, sometimes the second, and rarely the third. That is why the same test can be called math free by one person and math heavy by another, and why a subtest list is a better guide than a label.

The popular belief that a real IQ test contains no math is a simplification. When this phrase is searched on October 28, 2026, the snippets returned are mostly forum opinion, with some contributors saying IQ tests only measure pattern recognition and others saying they favor math and book knowledge. That is opinion, not documentation. The manuals say something more specific. One major clinical battery, the WAIS-IV, counted an arithmetic subtest toward its Full Scale IQ, and its successor does not, as the next section shows. A test with no calculation can also still contain numbers and quantitative reasoning, so a person who wants to avoid a particular demand needs the subtest names, not the headline.

This page answers a buying question. It does not teach mathematics, rate any individual's ability or diagnose a learning difference. Three neighbouring questions have their own pages. Readers who want the opposite choice, a test that concentrates on quantitative tasks, should read the page on taking a math focused IQ test. Readers who want the statistical link between math ability and IQ, including the correlation figures, should read the page on how math ability relates to IQ. Readers who want nonverbal batteries in general, which reduce language rather than numbers, will find them under the page on culture fair IQ tests. What remains here is narrower: which tests and forms leave calculation out, how much of a Full Scale IQ rested on it, and what a buyer gives up by choosing them.

The three meanings also behave differently for a person who finds math hard or stressful. Calculation and word problems are the demand most people mean when they say math. Numbers as symbols place almost no mathematical demand on the examinee, because a digit span is the same memory task whether the symbols are digits, letters or words. Quantitative relations between shapes sit between the two, and the final judgment about them is personal. The sections below describe each task as the ACIS subtest pages and Pearson's documents describe it, never by showing an item.

2 How much of a Full Scale IQ rests on math?

In the Wechsler batteries the answer changed in 2024: Arithmetic was one of ten subtests in the WAIS-IV Full Scale IQ, and it is outside the seven subtests of the WAIS-5 Full Scale IQ. Pearson's comparison flyer for the two editions, read on October 28, 2026, lists the WAIS-IV core subtests as Similarities, Vocabulary, Information, Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, Visual Puzzles, Digit Span, Arithmetic, Symbol Search and Coding, and states that its Full Scale IQ uses 10 subtests against 7 for the WAIS-5. The same flyer lists Arithmetic among the WAIS-5 secondary subtests, beside Information, Comprehension, Set Relations, Digits Forward, Digits Backward, Letter-Number Sequencing, Naming Speed Quantity, Symbol Span and Spatial Addition. Pearson's WAIS-IV product page describes Arithmetic as a core subtest, and the WAIS-5 sample score report states that subtests used to derive the Full Scale IQ are bolded and secondary subtests are in parentheses; Arithmetic appears there in parentheses.

By count, then, the WAIS-IV drew one tenth of its Full Scale IQ subtests from Arithmetic, and the WAIS-5 draws none. That is our arithmetic on Pearson's counts, and it is a count of subtests, not a statement about how much weight a subtest carries in the composite, which depends on the scoring rules that Pearson publishes to licensed examiners. The page on the WAIS-5 subtests, task by task lists the seven that now build the Full Scale IQ as Similarities, Vocabulary, Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, Figure Weights, Digit Sequencing and Coding, drawing on Pearson's documents. Two points follow for the reader who wants no math. The first is that the most prominent clinical test removed calculation from its headline score, so a Full Scale IQ without Arithmetic is not an outlier or a lesser product. The second is that the same edition moved Figure Weights, a task about quantitative relations, from supplemental to inside the Full Scale IQ, and kept a digit based working memory subtest in it. The WAIS-5 is not a math free test. It is a test whose headline score contains no calculation subtest.

Pearson's wording about the larger design is consistent with this. The WAIS-5 overview brochure describes broader coverage of fluid reasoning that includes verbal, visual, inductive, quantitative and logical reasoning, and gives 45 minutes for the 7 subtest Full Scale IQ. The WAIS-5 product page says that its Full Scale IQ now has only seven subtests and lists the complete print kit at 1,784 dollars, a price paid by the professional, as read on October 28, 2026. A composite built to omit some subtests exists in the Wechsler family too; the page on the General Ability Index compares the published versions and shows that they differ in which subtests they keep, so the name of a composite never replaces its subtest list.

3 What does the CHC model say about quantitative ability?

In the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model quantitative ability is not one thing: acquired mathematical knowledge belongs to Gq, and reasoning with quantities in a new problem belongs with fluid reasoning, Gf. The page on the CHC model lays out the broad abilities. Gq covers acquired mathematical knowledge, number concepts and the use of quantitative procedures, which is how the ACIS Arithmetic and Mathematical Achievement pages describe it. Gf covers reasoning with novel material, and the page on the quantitative reasoning test explains that quantitative reasoning is filed as a narrow ability under Gf in Carroll's survey, while what a school math exam scores is mostly Gq. The ACIS pages for Figure Weights and Visual Number Series place both tasks between Gf and Gq, because they ask the examinee to discover a relation among quantities, which is reasoning, using quantitative content, which is closer to Gq.

Working memory, Gwm, is the third ability that gets mistaken for math. The ACIS Digit Span page places it with working memory or short term memory capacity, and the ACIS Arithmetic page notes that the Wechsler scales have placed arithmetic under working memory because mental calculation requires holding intermediate values while applying a sequence of steps. This overlap is the reason a low Arithmetic result is hard to read. It can reflect slow calculation, limited practice, a misunderstood word problem or working memory load, and the ACIS pages say that it should be compared with mathematical achievement and working memory tasks before the weakness is attributed to one source.

The classification matters for the buying decision in a simple way. A buyer who avoids Gq subtests avoids learned mathematics. A buyer who also wants to avoid number based reasoning has to look at Gf subtests with numeric content. A buyer who wants to avoid every subtest that presents digits has to look at working memory as well. Each step removes more of the battery, and each step removes more of what the score can say. The CHC page gives the full map of abilities that remain.

4 Which subtests ask for calculation and word problems?

Two kinds of subtest ask for calculation: a mental Arithmetic task and a school style Mathematical Achievement task, and they are different tests of different abilities. The ACIS page on Arithmetic describes mental quantitative problem solving that draws on number knowledge, basic operations, attention and the ability to hold intermediate values. In the ACIS version, as the page reads on October 28, 2026, each problem appears with a large visual prompt and arrives as audio, the examinee must wait until the audio finishes before responding, and no calculator, notes, scratch paper or drawing tools are allowed. Later problems can be replayed once, but the 30 second timer keeps running. The task is therefore quantitative, auditory and memory loaded at the same time, which is why the Wechsler scales have placed it with working memory and why the WAIS-5 moved it to a secondary position.

The ACIS page on Mathematical Achievement describes a different demand. The task emphasizes learned quantitative knowledge, familiar procedures and the application of school based mathematical content, so it sits closer to educational attainment than to novel reasoning. According to the instructions on that page, the examinee answers 25 mathematical questions within a total time limit of 35 minutes, a reference table of formulas is available, and pen and scratch paper are allowed but calculators and outside help are not. Each correct answer scores one point, an incorrect answer carries no penalty and an "I do not know" option exists. These details matter to a reader who dreads math: the subtest gives a long overall window, supplies the formulas and does not punish a wrong guess, yet it remains a test of learned mathematics, and a person with little recent practice will be measured against that.

Both pages separate learned mathematics from reasoning, and both list reasons a weaker result may arise. The Mathematical Achievement page names gaps in instruction, anxiety, speed, working memory or unfamiliar notation. The Arithmetic page names working memory load, slow calculation, limited practice or misunderstanding the verbal problem. None of these is a statement about general ability, and the pages say that one subtest should never be read as the whole construct. The reason to leave these two subtests out of a test is therefore not that they are unfair. It is that a person who wants a score that does not depend on schooling in mathematics, practice with calculation or comfort with mental arithmetic delivered as audio gets a cleaner reading of reasoning, memory, language and spatial ability without them.

The cost of leaving them out is visible in the structure of the battery. These two subtests are the Quantitative Reasoning Index, the only index built from them. A form without them has no quantitative index at all, and any statement about quantitative skill from that form would have to come from somewhere else. That is a loss of information about a real, learnable ability, not a gain in fairness, and the section on what a score leaves out returns to it.

5 Which subtests use numbers without calculating?

Digit Span and the other working memory subtests use numbers as symbols to be remembered, and they involve no calculation at all. The ACIS page on Digit Span describes tasks that ask how many items can be held in immediate awareness and, in harder versions, how well they can be reversed or reordered. It states that digits are familiar, relatively neutral and easy to standardize, and that the task is rarely interpreted as a knowledge measure. In CHC terms the page relates it to working memory or short term memory capacity. A reader who is tired of math can treat Digit Span as a memory test that happens to use digits. The same logic explains why a digit based task, Digit Sequencing, sits in the WAIS-5 working memory domain and inside its seven subtest Full Scale IQ.

Alphanumeric Sequencing belongs to the same family. Digit Span, Alphanumeric Sequencing and Arithmetic present their items as audio and need working sound, so the audio requirement does not separate math from non math. What separates them is the operation: remembering and reordering versus calculating.

Visual Number Series needs a more careful reading. The ACIS page describes number series tasks as asking the examinee to infer the rule that generates a sequence and predict what comes next, and says that even when the surface material is numeric, the underlying demand is usually inductive rule discovery rather than school mathematics alone. In the ACIS version, as the page reads on October 28, 2026, the examinee sees 20 number series with a missing number, types the missing whole number, has 45 seconds per item and is stopped after three consecutive errors, with no calculator, notes or scratch paper. The page places the task between fluid reasoning and quantitative reasoning. Whether a person experiences it as math is a personal judgment that no page can make for them. Some find the numeric surface off putting and others find it a puzzle. What the description does establish is that the task is not a calculation exercise and that it belongs only to the Full Scale form.

Two practical rules follow. A buyer who objects to calculation can accept digit based working memory subtests, because they never ask for an operation. A buyer who objects to numbers as a surface, for example because of a specific difficulty with number symbols, should read the subtest lists and avoid the digit and number series tasks as well, and should know that doing so removes much of the working memory domain. The section on dyscalculia returns to who should decide that.

6 Is a test of quantitative relations between shapes a math test?

Figure Weights is a nonverbal reasoning task about how quantities balance, and whether to call it math depends on whether you count proportional reasoning as mathematics. The ACIS page on Figure Weights says that figure weights tasks ask whether a person can discover the quantitative rule that balances a visual analogy or scale like arrangement. They are nonverbal in appearance but draw on proportional thinking, relational reasoning and structured comparison, rather than on rote arithmetic alone. The page places the task between Gf and Gq. In the ACIS version, as the instructions read on October 28, 2026, the examinee sees 27 balance scale problems, chooses the option that balances the scale, has 45 seconds per item and is stopped after three consecutive errors, and no calculator, notes or scratch paper are allowed. Color, shape and size distinguish the shapes, and no figures are computed.

Pearson changed its treatment of Figure Weights between editions. It lists Figure Weights as a primary subtest of the WAIS-5 and inside the seven subtest Full Scale IQ, after listing it as supplemental in the WAIS-IV, according to the comparison flyer cited above. The Figure Weights page adds that a weaker result may reflect difficulty coordinating more than one relationship at a time, not necessarily weak mathematics. That sentence is the best guide for a reader who is unsure. A person who struggles with algebra may find a balance task natural, and a person comfortable with algebra may find the same task a hard test of holding two relations in mind.

Here the difference between nonverbal and number free becomes important. A nonverbal test reduces the load of language: instructions and items rely on shapes, patterns and spatial relations, and the page on nonverbal IQ tests covers what those batteries are and where their limits lie. Nonverbal does not mean free of quantity. The ACIS technical manual describes its Nonverbal Index composite as emphasizing nonverbal reasoning, visual spatial ability, working memory and speed with minimal reliance on verbal content; the phrase concerns the verbal load of the tasks, not their number load. A pattern completion task such as Matrix Reasoning asks for a rule in a visual array, and the ACIS page places it in fluid reasoning. Figure Weights asks for a rule about quantities. The first is the safer choice for a reader who wants to avoid every quantitative demand, and the second is the one that most often surprises readers who assumed that anything with pictures was math free.

In practical terms, the Quick and Optimized forms contain Figure Weights and do not contain the two calculation subtests. A reader who wants to leave out all quantitative content, including balance reasoning, can build a Custom Test instead, as the form section below describes, and the cost of that choice is again in what the score no longer covers.

7 What are the real options for a test with little or no math?

A buyer has several realistic routes, and they differ more in what they norm and who supervises than in how much math they carry. The table sets them side by side. Prices and times were read on October 28, 2026 from the pages cited and can change; ACIS prices are one time payments, and a clinician's fee for an evaluation is not stated here because no clinician price was read.

Several guides help a reader choose among the online routes. The page on the best online IQ tests compares the options by what each documents about its scoring. The page on free IQ tests explains what a free screener can and cannot tell you. The page on where to take an IQ test lists the in person and online routes and what each requires, and the page on IQ tests for adults is the entry point for an adult choosing for the first time. None of them settles the math question, because few products publish a subtest list, and reading the list before paying is the only reliable check.

One category deserves a plain warning. A numerical reasoning practice test built for employers is a test of quantitative skill under time pressure, and its score is not an IQ. A reader who wanted a test without math and lands on one has found the opposite of what was intended. Conversely, a free screener that advertises pattern and logic puzzles may still contain number sequences, and nothing on its page will say so unless the publisher lists the task types.

8 Which ACIS forms contain math, and which do not?

ACIS Quick and Optimized contain no calculation subtest, the Full Scale form contains both, and the Custom Test lets a buyer choose every subtest. The facts below were read on the published ACIS site on October 28, 2026, and prices can change. Quick costs 15 dollars for six subtests in three domains and takes about 45 minutes: Similarities, Vocabulary, Matrix Reasoning, Figure Weights, Digit Span and Alphanumeric Sequencing. Optimized costs 30 dollars for 13 subtests in five domains and takes about 110 minutes: Vocabulary, Antonyms, Similarities, Synonyms, Matrix Reasoning, Figure Weights, Logic Grid, Spatial Comprehension, Layer Rotation, Digit Span, Alphanumeric Sequencing, Coding and Symbol Search. Full Scale costs 50 dollars for all 20 subtests in six domains and takes about 175 minutes. Seven subtests appear only in that form: Information, Arithmetic, Mathematical Achievement, Visual Number Series, Complex Relations, Visual Puzzles and Visual Sequence. The page on the Quick IQ test explains what the shortest form gives up.

The technical manual lists a composite that combines the quantitative subtests. It says that the Quantitative Reasoning composite, CQRI, combines Mathematical Achievement, Figure Weights, Arithmetic and Visual Number Series. By count, that means one of six Quick subtests, one of 13 Optimized subtests and four of 20 Full Scale subtests belong to the quantitative composite, which is about 17 percent, 8 percent and 20 percent respectively. Those percentages are our arithmetic on subtest counts, not a statement about how much any subtest weighs in a score. The Quantitative Reasoning Index itself, the one the Full Scale report shows as a domain, is built only from Mathematical Achievement and Arithmetic. A form without those two has no such index.

The Custom Test is the route for a reader who wants to go further than Optimized. It costs 5 dollars per subtest, the buyer picks any subtests, any domain completed returns its full index score, and every subtest returns its scaled score. A buyer could, for example, choose four subtests without Figure Weights for 20 dollars, which is our arithmetic on the per subtest price. The limits matter: the Full Scale IQ needs the Full Scale battery, so a Custom Test returns indices and scaled scores, not that headline number, and at 10 subtests the Full Scale form costs the same.

A point about the headline score deserves care. According to the home page, every form reports a Full Scale IQ with its 95 percent confidence interval, and the Full Scale form measures all 20 subtests. The Full Scale IQ reported by Quick or Optimized is therefore computed from a smaller set of subtests than the 20 subtest score, and the two should not be treated as interchangeable. A reader who chooses a form without calculation gets a Full Scale IQ with no quantitative subtest in it; a reader who wants the score that includes quantitative reasoning needs the Full Scale form. All forms allow breaks, save progress between subtests and allow 30 days to complete. The technical manual documents the composites and the structure; this page does not quote any figure from it.

9 What does a score without quantitative subtests measure, and what does it leave out?

A score built without quantitative subtests measures reasoning, language, memory, space and speed, and it leaves one broad ability unmeasured instead of correcting it. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing call this problem construct underrepresentation, the degree to which a test fails to capture important aspects of the construct it claims to measure. Whether that matters depends on the claim. If the claim is "this is my general reasoning ability," a broad battery without calculation can support it. If the claim is "this describes everything an IQ test can cover," it cannot.

The evidence that general ability survives a change of content comes from comparisons of whole batteries, not from deleting one subtest. Johnson and colleagues reported in Intelligence in 2004, volume 32, issue 1, pages 95 to 107, consistent results for the general factor across three test batteries, and in 2008, volume 36, issue 1, pages 81 to 95, they replicated the finding with five batteries given to Dutch seamen. In that second study all of the correlations between g factors were at least .95 apart from those involving the Cattell Culture Fair Test, which has only four matrix reasoning tasks, and the lowest value was .77, according to the abstract. The finding does not say that any short composite equals g. It says that batteries with different content, built from enough varied tasks, tend to produce nearly the same general factor, which supports treating a broad test with no calculation as a reasonable measure of general reasoning ability, although those studies did not test that exact case.

What a quantitative free score cannot do is equally concrete. It cannot show a quantitative strength or weakness, because the index is absent. It cannot be compared directly with a 20 subtest score, because the subtest sets differ. It cannot tell a reader whether a difficulty with math reflects learned skills, working memory or something else, because the subtests that would help separate those sources are the ones left out. And it does not become fairer or truer than a score with them. A person who is weak at calculation and strong at reasoning may score higher without Arithmetic, a person strong at calculation may score lower, and a person with an even profile may see little change. The direction depends on the person's pattern, and no general rule can promise one.

What remains is still a substantial map. Verbal ability is sampled by subtests such as Vocabulary and Similarities, and readers who want to go deep on the verbal domain can read the page on the vocabulary IQ test. Spatial ability is sampled by subtests such as Visual Puzzles, and the page on the spatial IQ test covers that domain in the same way. Fluid reasoning is sampled by Matrix Reasoning and, in Quick and Optimized, by Figure Weights. Working memory and, in Optimized, processing speed complete the picture. Together they describe a person well, with one named gap.

10 Dyscalculia and math anxiety: what bears on choosing a test

A person with dyscalculia or with math anxiety can reasonably choose a form without calculation, but a test cannot diagnose either, and neither should be assumed from a low quantitative score. Dyscalculia is described in research as a specific difficulty with number. Butterworth, Varma and Laurillard reviewed it in Science in 2011, volume 332, issue 6033, pages 1049 to 1053, and proposed a new approach that treats it as a core deficit in understanding sets and their numerosities, a deficit that underpins elementary school mathematics. They also described neuroimaging studies that have examined the neural basis of numerosity processing, and interventions such as adaptive software. For a person choosing a test, the relevant implication is limited: a general ability score that is dominated by calculation items would mix a specific difficulty with number into an estimate of reasoning, and a battery with domains separated lets the two be seen apart.

Math anxiety is a different matter and has a different literature. Barroso and colleagues pooled 747 effect sizes from research conducted between 1992 and 2018 in a meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin, volume 147, issue 2, pages 134 to 168, and reported a small to moderate negative and statistically significant correlation of .28 between math anxiety and math achievement, with significant moderators that included grade level, math ability level, the type of anxiety scale, the math topic and the math assessment. The finding is a correlation across studies. It does not establish that anxiety lowers a person's tested reasoning, and it does not say what any one person would score without it. It does support one practical idea: calculation subtests can carry an emotional load that other subtests do not, and a reader who knows that about themselves has a legitimate reason to prefer a form without them. The ACIS pages for Arithmetic and Mathematical Achievement both list anxiety among the reasons a result can be lower.

Three cautions apply. First, choosing a form without calculation is a choice about test content, not a diagnosis of anything, and no ACIS score identifies dyscalculia or any learning disorder. A person who suspects dyscalculia should speak to a qualified clinician, who can assess number processing directly and take the person's history into account. The same holds for dyslexia, where the demand is different: reading, not number, and the sibling page on a dyslexia friendly IQ test covers what to check there. Second, a test without calculation is not a test without numbers: Digit Span uses digits, and Visual Number Series uses numeric sequences in the Full Scale form. Third, a person who already has an evaluation that documents a difficulty with number should discuss with the evaluator which scores in a new report would be informative, instead of trying to read the answer from a consumer test.

11 How should you read the score and set up the session?

Read a score without calculation the way you read any other, as an estimate with a range, and set up the session so that audio, timing and breaks do not add errors the score then attributes to you. ACIS reports indices and the Full Scale IQ on the standard scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, scaled subtest scores from 1 to 19 with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3, percentiles and a 95 percent confidence interval. On a normal model, a scaled score of 13 is one standard deviation above the mean and an index of 115 is one standard deviation above it, which falls near the 84th percentile. The page on how IQ scores are normed explains how a reference group turns a raw count into a standard score, and the page on the 15 point standard deviation explains the scale.

A single subtest is less precise than a battery, which is a general principle of psychometrics rather than a statistic about any one test. The page on reliability and validity explains why shorter composites carry wider intervals and why a difference between two scores needs its own evidence. The Standards say the same thing about composites: Standard 1.14 asks that when the interpretation of subscores, score differences or profiles is suggested, the rationale and relevant evidence for it be provided, and that the basis for composites be given. For this page the lesson is practical. A Quick score is built from six subtests, and it is a reasonable first look at general reasoning, not a profile. A small gap between two of its parts is not a finding.

Practical conditions matter more when the reader is anxious about the content. Digit Span, Alphanumeric Sequencing and Arithmetic need working sound, so test the speakers or headphones before starting, and know that the audio subtests cannot be done silently. Choose a quiet room and a time when you are rested, because the working memory subtests are the ones most easily disrupted by interruption. Use the permitted breaks: progress is saved between subtests, and the 30 days allow a long form to be completed in several sittings. If you take the Full Scale form and are apprehensive about calculation, put Arithmetic and Mathematical Achievement in separate sessions from the reasoning subtests so that a difficult hour does not color the rest. Remember that no calculator, notes or scratch paper are allowed in Arithmetic, and that pen and scratch paper are allowed, with a formula table, in Mathematical Achievement, so prepare accordingly. Wherever a test is timed, as Figure Weights is at 45 seconds per item, treat the clock as part of the measurement, not as a pass mark.

12 Where ACIS sits, and what a buyer should do

ACIS is a normed, online, unsupervised battery that sells the choice this page describes, so read its claims as a seller's and check them against the rest of the page. We sell the product, and we have an interest in your choosing a form. The limits are plain. The test is taken online and unsupervised, which means that the conditions of the session, the device and the examinee's state are not controlled by an examiner. It is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument and cannot identify dyscalculia, dyslexia, ADHD or any other condition. It is not suited to hiring decisions, school accommodations or admission to high IQ societies. It is available in English only, and the technical manual states that verbal and knowledge tasks are affected by English proficiency and educational exposure. Quick and Optimized contain no calculation subtest, but they do contain Figure Weights and digit based working memory subtests, and the Full Scale IQ of any form depends on which subtests the form contains. The strengths are equally specific: adult norms for ages 16 to 90, a Full Scale IQ reported with its 95 percent confidence interval, indices and percentiles, a free trial with no card, example reports you can open before you pay, and a guarantee that reads: "Full refund within 5 days if the report does not deliver the features described at checkout or a technical issue prevents you from accessing your results."

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) are the right yardstick for this choice, and three of their ideas apply directly. Standard 1.14 requires the rationale for composites to be given, which is why this page names the subtests behind each form. The definition of construct underrepresentation explains what a form without calculation gives up. Standard 3.2 makes developers responsible for minimizing construct irrelevant characteristics, including linguistic, communicative, cognitive and cultural ones, which is the principle behind offering a form without calculation subtests to a reader for whom that demand would not reflect the ability being measured. The American Psychological Association's 2020 APA Guidelines for Psychological Assessment and Evaluation add two relevant points: Guideline 6 asks that tools be selected for sufficient validity evidence and score reliability and for being fair and appropriate to the purpose, population, setting and context, and Guideline 10 asks for awareness of individual differences and population appropriate norms. Together they say that the test must fit the question, and that a score is an input to a judgment, not the judgment.

A buyer can decide in four steps. First, name the reason for the test: curiosity about general reasoning is well served by a form without calculation, while a question about quantitative skill needs the Full Scale form or the page on math focused testing. Second, choose the form: Quick for a first look, Optimized for five domains, Full Scale for all 20 subtests and the 20 subtest Full Scale IQ, Custom for a particular set. Third, read the subtest list for the form against what you want to avoid, remembering that Figure Weights and the digit tasks are in the shorter forms. Fourth, set up the session as the previous section describes. The example reports for Quick, Optimized and Full Scale, linked in the buttons on this page, show what each form returns, and the free trial costs nothing and needs no card.

13 Sources Behind This Page

Every figure above is traceable to one of the following, and each is linked at the point where it is used. Subtest counts and the percentages derived from them are our arithmetic on published counts and are labelled as such in the text. Prices, times and instructions for products were read on October 28, 2026 and can change.

• Pearson Assessments. WAIS-5 and WAIS-IV comparison flyer (core, primary and secondary subtests, Full Scale IQ subtest counts, administration times, norm years). Pearson Assessments, PDF, read October 28, 2026.
• Pearson Assessments. WAIS-5 Overview Brochure (Full Scale IQ time and fluid reasoning coverage). Pearson Assessments, PDF, read October 28, 2026.
• Pearson Assessments. WAIS-5 Sample Score Report (bolded Full Scale IQ subtests, secondary subtests in parentheses). Pearson Assessments, PDF, read October 28, 2026.
• Pearson Assessments. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition, product page (seven subtest Full Scale IQ, complete kit price). Pearson Assessments, read October 28, 2026.
• Pearson Assessments. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition, product page (Arithmetic as a core subtest, Full Scale IQ of ten subtests). Pearson Assessments, read October 28, 2026.
• Butterworth B, Varma S, Laurillard D. Dyscalculia: From Brain to Education. Science, 2011, volume 332, issue 6033, pages 1049 to 1053.
• Barroso C, Ganley C, McGraw A, Geer E, Hart S, Daucourt M. A meta-analysis of the relation between math anxiety and math achievement. Psychological Bulletin, 2021, volume 147, issue 2, pages 134 to 168.
• Johnson W, Bouchard T, Krueger R, McGue M, Gottesman I. Just one g: consistent results from three test batteries. Intelligence, 2004, volume 32, issue 1, pages 95 to 107.
• Johnson W, Nijenhuis J, Bouchard T. Still just 1 g: Consistent results from five test batteries. Intelligence, 2008, volume 36, issue 1, pages 81 to 95. Abstract read on the University of Amsterdam repository.
• American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association and National Council on Measurement in Education. Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, 2014, Standards 1.14 and 3.2 and the discussion of construct underrepresentation in Chapter 1.
• American Psychological Association, APA Task Force on Psychological Assessment and Evaluation Guidelines. APA Guidelines for Psychological Assessment and Evaluation, 2020, Guidelines 6 and 10.

14 Frequently Asked Questions