WAIS-5 subtests, task by task: what each one asks and which scores it feeds

0 The short answer

The WAIS-5 has 20 subtests, and only seven of them produce the Full Scale IQ. Pearson sorts the 20 into 10 primary subtests, which build the five primary index scores, and 10 secondary subtests, which feed only ancillary indices (15 in all, most of which also reuse primary subtests). The seven Full Scale IQ subtests are Similarities, Vocabulary, Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, Figure Weights, Digit Sequencing and Coding. Five subtests are new in 2024, two WAIS-IV subtests are gone, and items are secure test material, so this page describes each task's format and never its stimulus.

1 What are the 20 WAIS-5 subtests, and how are they grouped?

The WAIS-5 is a battery of 20 subtests that Pearson sorts three ways: by cognitive domain, by tier (primary or secondary), and by whether the subtest feeds the Full Scale IQ. Pearson's by-the-numbers infographic counts 20 subtests, of which 15 are retained from the WAIS-IV and five are new, and it counts seven working memory subtests. Pearson's overview brochure describes a primary battery of 10 subtests and five cognitive domains: verbal comprehension, visual spatial, fluid reasoning, working memory and processing speed. By our arithmetic, that count of 15 retained subtests works out because the three tasks of the old Digit Span are now counted as three subtests: 13 WAIS-IV subtests carry over, and the split adds two.

The primary tier is the set that builds the five primary index scores, and the seven Full Scale IQ subtests are a subset of it. The secondary tier is the other 10 subtests, which Pearson's product page says were provided to expand clinical utility. Pearson's sample score report prints the Full Scale IQ subtests in bold and the secondary subtests in parentheses, and the table below follows the same lists. The abbreviations are the ones printed on that report, so a reader holding a real report can match them line by line.

The item counts are the manual totals, and an examinee does not attempt every item, because Pearson's materials describe start points and discontinue rules. Three further details in the table matter before any task is described. Visual Puzzles, Running Digits and Symbol Search are primary subtests that do not feed the Full Scale IQ. Digits Forward is a secondary subtest that is still given before Digit Sequencing, a point the Working Memory section explains. And Working Memory holds seven of the 20 subtests, more than any other domain, while Visual Spatial holds two.

In CHC terms, the five domains correspond to Gc (Verbal Comprehension), Gv (Visual Spatial), Gf (Fluid Reasoning), Gwm (Working Memory) and Gs (Processing Speed). That is the scheme that the handbook chapter by Schneider and McGrew gives for the WISC-V, which carries the same five index names, and the chapter classes that scale's Quantitative Reasoning ancillary index as Gf-RQ. Applying the scheme to the WAIS-5 is our inference from the shared names, and the page on the CHC model explains what each broad ability covers.

No item appears on this page, because test security rules out publishing them. The sample report carries a warning that it contains copyrighted material and trade secrets, and the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct asks psychologists in Standard 9.11 to make reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity and security of test materials. A page that listed items would let the next examinee prepare for them, which is the exposure that test security exists to prevent. The page on what the different subtest types measure and the page on what the WAIS-5 is and who it is for cover the general picture without any item.

2 Which seven subtests make up the WAIS-5 Full Scale IQ?

The Full Scale IQ is built from seven subtests, two verbal, one visual spatial, two fluid reasoning, one working memory and one processing speed, and that mix is the main way the WAIS-5 Full Scale IQ differs from its predecessor. The seven are Similarities and Vocabulary from Verbal Comprehension, Block Design from Visual Spatial, Matrix Reasoning and Figure Weights from Fluid Reasoning, Digit Sequencing from Working Memory and Coding from Processing Speed. Winter, Trudel and Kaufman list the same seven in their 2024 paper in the Journal of Intelligence, and Pearson's sample report prints exactly these in bold. The two, one, two, one, one pattern is the same shape that the handbook's chapter on the WISC-V describes for that scale's Full Scale IQ.

Pearson's sample report shows the mechanism for a fictional examinee. The seven scaled scores are added, and the sum, 82 in that sample, is converted to a Full Scale IQ of 111, printed with a percentile, a 95 percent confidence interval and a descriptor. The page on what a Full Scale IQ is explains why a composite of several subtests is steadier than any one of them.

Pearson's product page gives its reasons for moving from 10 subtests to seven. It says the seven subtest model is more predictive of outcomes such as achievement, memory and executive function, more related to general intelligence, more clinically sensitive, and more consistent with everyday functioning, where verbal abilities make up more of daily interaction. It adds that a 10 subtest model would underemphasize crystallized and fluid ability and that the seven subtest model best minimized racial and ethnic differences in the Full Scale IQ. Those are the publisher's stated reasons, and the page does not cite the studies behind them, so a reader should treat them as claims to check against the technical manual and not as findings.

The seven subtest choice has an arithmetic consequence that Winter, Trudel and Kaufman put in numbers. Working memory and processing speed made up 40 percent of the WAIS-IV Full Scale and make up 28.6 percent of the WAIS-5 one. Our own arithmetic on the subtest lists reproduces both shares: the WAIS-IV drew four of its 10 subtests from those two domains, and the WAIS-5 draws two of its seven, Digit Sequencing and Coding. A Full Scale IQ that weights speed and working memory less is a different composite, even when two editions share a name.

Pearson also publishes two timing figures that map onto the two routes through the battery. Its product page gives 45 minutes for the seven subtest Full Scale IQ and 60 minutes for the 10 primary subtests, and its by-the-numbers infographic notes that Digits Forward is required and is counted inside both figures. The product page's frequently asked questions say the Full Scale IQ can be obtained about 20 minutes faster than on the WAIS-IV and the primary subtests about 10 minutes faster, and that special start points for examinees suspected of intellectual giftedness cut testing time by about 25 percent relative to standard start points with high ability examinees. Pearson's materials as read give totals only, not a time for each subtest, which is why the item counts in the table above are the nearest public proxy.

Substitution is tightly limited. Pearson says only one substitution is permitted when deriving the Full Scale IQ or the Nonmotor Index, the substitute must come from the same domain, and it is not appropriate to substitute for the sole purpose of changing the score. Substitution is not allowed for any primary or ancillary index, apart from the Nonmotor Index. The same page explains that Visual Puzzles sits outside the Full Scale IQ and therefore outside the General Ability Index, which the page on the General Ability Index traces in more detail.

3 What do the four Verbal Comprehension subtests ask?

The four Verbal Comprehension subtests ask the examinee to turn words, concepts and general knowledge into spoken answers, and only Similarities and Vocabulary feed the Verbal Comprehension Index and the Full Scale IQ. In Similarities the examinee describes how two objects or concepts are alike, across 18 items. In Vocabulary the examinee names a pictured object or defines a word that the examiner states orally, across 24 items presented pictorially and verbally. Information asks 24 general knowledge questions, and Comprehension asks 18 questions about social situations and general principles. Those descriptions follow the manual summary in Trudel, Winter and Kaufman.

Every Verbal Comprehension task needs a spoken answer, and an examiner has to judge it. Pearson's Q-interactive technical report says examiners write down the complete verbatim response to each verbal subtest item. Pearson's frequently asked questions describe queries, the neutral prompts an examiner may give when a response is incomplete, vague or unclear, and say that a query is marked with a Q on the record form. For the WAIS-5, Pearson says the Comprehension questions remain the same, the sample responses were updated slightly for societal and language change, and the scoring criteria were revised.

Similarities and Vocabulary build the Verbal Comprehension Index and also feed the Full Scale IQ, the Nonmotor Index and the General Ability Index. All four feed the Verbal (Expanded Crystallized) Index, and Similarities and Comprehension, with Set Relations, feed the Verbal Reasoning Index. By our count of the subtest lists in Pearson's ancillary index flyer and sample report, Similarities feeds six composites, Vocabulary five, Comprehension two and Information only one, the Expanded Crystallized Index.

Pearson's sample report shows one effect of adding subtests to a composite. The four subtest Expanded Crystallized Index prints a narrower 95 percent interval than the two subtest Verbal Comprehension Index, and by our arithmetic on the printed intervals the expanded band is 12 points wide and the primary band is 15.

What the domain measures needs two cautions. The first is exposure. The handbook's WISC-V chapter warns that these subtests need some exposure to cultural and educational opportunity, yet it says it would be wrong to treat the index as a simple reflection of learned facts or education, because knowledge acquisition depends on opportunity and also on other cognitive abilities applied along the way. Language is the second caution. Pearson says the WAIS-5 was normed on people whose primary language is English and that a summary report should carry that caveat. It offers the Nonverbal Index, which leaves out Verbal Comprehension, as a potentially more appropriate estimate for substantial expressive language difficulty and as a possibly useful estimate for English language learners and for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

4 What do Block Design and Visual Puzzles ask?

The Visual Spatial Index rests on two subtests that both ask how parts fit a whole, one by building with blocks and one entirely in the head. In the manual summary by Trudel, Winter and Kaufman, Block Design has 14 timed items in which the examinee re-creates a model or a picture of a design using blocks, and Visual Puzzles has 25 timed items in which the examinee views a completed puzzle and chooses pieces from an array that together recreate it. Pearson's product page lists a standard block set in the complete WAIS-5 kit and sells a red and white set of nine blocks separately, which fits the Block Design description.

The two tasks demand different things beyond space. Pearson's frequently asked questions say that Visual Puzzles, unlike Block Design, does not involve visual-motor integration or trial-and-error problem solving with feedback, and that it may place slightly greater demands on mental rotation. That difference shows up in the score routes. Visual Puzzles feeds the Nonmotor Index and Block Design does not, and Pearson's telepractice guidance says that without a professional facilitator Block Design and Spatial Addition are not feasible remotely, in which case Visual Puzzles can substitute for Block Design in the Full Scale IQ.

Time works differently here from the verbal tasks. Pearson says Visual Puzzles and Figure Weights have strict time limits because higher ability examinees tend to respond faster, as they do on Block Design. Pearson's WAIS-IV product page gives the earlier edition's reason for Block Design's time bonus, which is that without bonus points the task does not discriminate finely at higher ability levels. The WAIS-5 sample report lists a Block Design No Time Bonus score and a Block Design Partial score beside the main scaled score, which shows that the speed component and partial credit are still tracked and can be separated. It also lists Block Design dimension errors and rotation errors. Pearson says these error scores, like the longest span scores on the memory tasks, are reported only as cumulative percentages and not as scaled scores.

The two subtests build the Visual Spatial Index, and the Expanded Visual Spatial Index adds Symbol Span and Spatial Addition to make four. The Nonmotor Index uses Visual Puzzles only, and the General Ability Index uses Block Design only.

The sample report also shows a feature of WAIS-5 reports that is easy to miss. Beside each age based scaled score it prints a second one, the reference group scaled score, based on examinees aged 20 years 0 months to 34 years 11 months. For one Block Design raw score in the sample, the two columns differ by three scaled score points. A reader comparing two reports needs to know which of the two columns each number came from.

Pearson presents the split into separate Visual Spatial and Fluid Reasoning indexes as a purer measure of each construct. An independent factor analysis, described in the section on what a subtest score can say, did not support that split, so the claim is best read beside that evidence.

5 What do the four Fluid Reasoning subtests ask?

Fluid Reasoning has four subtests, two primary and two secondary, and the two primary ones differ in whether the clock matters. In Matrix Reasoning, which has 26 items, the examinee selects the response option that completes a matrix or series. In Figure Weights, which has 28 timed items, the examinee views a scale with a missing weight and selects the response that keeps the scale balanced. Pearson's frequently asked questions explain the difference in timing. Matrix Reasoning has only a 30 second guideline because completion time data showed that the vast majority of examinees who respond correctly do so within 30 seconds, and extra time for low ability examinees did not turn wrong answers into right ones. Examiners may grant more time when an examinee shows a pattern of delayed but correct responses.

Arithmetic is the subtest that moved furthest. It has 22 timed items in which the examinee solves arithmetic problems mentally. On the WAIS-IV it was a core Working Memory subtest, and on the WAIS-5 it is a secondary Fluid Reasoning subtest. The handbook notes that earlier studies of the WAIS-IV placed Arithmetic with working memory in four-factor models and with fluid reasoning in five-factor models. One of those studies, Weiss and colleagues' 2013 analysis, reported in its abstract that a five-factor WAIS-IV model fitted better than the four-factor one, with a fluid reasoning composite of Matrix Reasoning, Arithmetic and Figure Weights. Pearson says the WAIS-5 structure was influenced by factor-analytic studies among other sources, which is consistent with the move of Arithmetic.

Set Relations is new. Its 27 items show the examinee circles that depict relations, and the examinee selects the response option that completes or represents the relations best. Pearson's product page describes the construct as logical deductive reasoning, fluid intelligence and simultaneous processing, and says it may also involve working memory and crystallized knowledge.

Matrix Reasoning and Figure Weights build the Fluid Reasoning Index, and all four subtests feed the Expanded Fluid Index. Figure Weights and Arithmetic also feed the Quantitative Reasoning Index, and Set Relations joins Similarities and Comprehension in the Verbal Reasoning Index. By our count of Pearson's lists, Figure Weights is the most widely used subtest in the battery: it feeds seven composites, the Fluid Reasoning Index, the Full Scale IQ, the Expanded Fluid Index, the Quantitative Reasoning Index, the Nonverbal Index, the Nonmotor Index and the General Ability Index. Matrix Reasoning feeds six.

The sample report also shows how much a composite depends on its list of subtests. Its Verbal Reasoning Index, which draws on Similarities, Comprehension and Set Relations, and its Quantitative Reasoning Index, which draws on Figure Weights and Arithmetic, sit 28 points apart in the same sample, by our arithmetic on the printed scores, although both describe reasoning. A composite is only as informative as the list of subtests behind it.

6 What do the seven Working Memory subtests ask?

Working Memory is the largest domain on the WAIS-5, with seven subtests, but only two of them, Digit Sequencing and Running Digits, build the Working Memory Index. Five of the seven are auditory tasks. In Digits Forward, with 20 trials, the examinee repeats a sequence of digits in the same order, and in Digits Backward, also 20 trials, in reverse order. In Digit Sequencing, 20 trials, the examinee recalls the digits in ascending order, and in Letter-Number Sequencing, 20 trials, the examinee recalls the numbers in ascending order and then the letters in alphabetical order. The fifth auditory task, Running Digits, is new, and the manual summary gives it 10 items in which the examinee hears a sequence of digits and recalls a specific number of them in the same order. The page on working memory testing in adults covers the construct itself, and the index table later on this page lists which subtests feed each working memory index.

Pearson describes Running Digits as an auditory working memory subtest designed to measure registration and maintenance, including refreshing and updating information held in short term storage while processing additional stimuli. It says the task taps aspects of the central executive, the episodic buffer and the focus of attention, and the comparison flyer adds that it requires flexibility in information processing and a progressive shift of attention. Pearson's frequently asked questions explain an unusual design feature. Some items are long, unscored recalibration items, and the examinee is not told which ones are unscored. Their purpose is to stop examinees from ignoring the first digits of a string and rehearsing the rest, which would turn the task into the simple rehearsal that the other auditory tasks already measure.

Order matters for the three digit tasks. Pearson says Digits Forward should precede Digit Sequencing because omitting it lowers Digit Sequencing and Digits Backward scores for some examinees, a loss of what it calls instructional progression. Digits Backward, if given, follows Digit Sequencing, because that was the order in standardization. Digits Forward does not contribute to the Full Scale IQ or to the primary indices, yet it must come first, which is why it is counted inside both timing figures.

The two visual tasks are shared with the Wechsler Memory Scale. Symbol Span has 23 items in which the examinee sees abstract symbols on a stimulus page for a designated time and then selects them, in the order shown, on a response page. Spatial Addition has 23 items in which the examinee is shown two grids of color-coded circles one after the other and then creates a new grid combining the circles of the previous grids. Pearson says Symbol Span measures the capacity to hold a mental image of a design and the relative spatial position on the page, and that Spatial Addition requires storage, manipulation and the ability to ignore competing stimuli. Pearson's technical report adds that the WMS-IV version of Spatial Addition used a cardboard grid and cards, that the WAIS-5 uses chips and a flat grid or a digital version in which the examinee touches and drags objects, and that digital norms were equated because the two response modes were not expected to give equivalent raw scores.

The sample report shows how much a single index can hide. Its Visual Working Memory Index equals its Working Memory Index, yet the two subtests behind the visual index sit five scaled score points apart, which the report flags as a significant difference with a base rate of 5 percent or less. Someone who sees only the Working Memory line would see none of this.

7 What do the three Processing Speed subtests ask?

The three Processing Speed subtests ask for fast, simple responses under a clock, and the newest of them removes the pencil. In Coding, which has 135 items, the examinee uses a key to copy symbols paired with numbers within a time limit, and Pearson says Coding did not change for the WAIS-5. In Symbol Search, which has 60 items, the examinee scans a search group and indicates whether a symbol matches the target group, again within a time limit. Pearson says the Symbol Search items, font and spacing differ from the WAIS-IV, and that both tasks are given on paper in the response booklet and are not available digitally on Q-interactive.

Naming Speed Quantity is the new one. In the manual summary the examinee works as fast as possible, within a time limit, to name the number of squares in a series of boxes. Pearson describes it as a motor-free processing speed subtest designed to measure numerical processing fluency and the ability to recognize and label quantities efficiently, which it calls subitizing. Pearson contrasts it with Coding: Coding involves encoding and rapidly retrieving newly encoded associations and graphomotor speed, whereas Naming Speed Quantity involves rapid retrieval of frequently used and overlearned long term associations and very simple expressive responses. Pearson says Cancellation was dropped in favor of it, and that Picture Completion was dropped to decrease the emphasis on speed in the battery.

The composites split the three along the motor demand. Coding and Symbol Search build the Processing Speed Index, Symbol Search and Naming Speed Quantity build the Motor-Reduced Processing Speed Index, and only Coding reaches the Full Scale IQ. The sample report also lists Symbol Search set errors, Symbol Search rotation errors and Naming Speed Quantity errors as base rate scores, which follow the same rule as the other error scores.

In the sample report, the Processing Speed Index prints the widest 95 percent interval of the five primary indices and the largest standard error of measurement among them. Speed tasks carry real uncertainty, and the page on what processing speed measures explains why a low speed score does not identify a cause on its own.

8 What changed subtest by subtest since the WAIS-IV?

Of the 15 WAIS-IV subtests, 13 carry over in some form, two were removed and five were added, but the larger change is where the survivors sit. Pearson's comparison flyer lists the WAIS-IV as 10 core and five supplemental subtests and the WAIS-5 as 10 primary and 10 secondary ones, with the Full Scale IQ falling from 10 subtests to seven. The table maps each WAIS-IV subtest to its WAIS-5 role, using the flyer for the lists and the handbook's WAIS-IV chapter by Drozdick and colleagues for the old index placements.

Four movements matter most. First, five subtests changed their relation to the Full Scale IQ: Figure Weights went from supplemental to one of the seven, while Information, Visual Puzzles, Arithmetic and Symbol Search, all core subtests in the WAIS-IV ten subtest Full Scale IQ, now sit outside the seven. Second, Arithmetic left Working Memory for Fluid Reasoning. Winter, Trudel and Kaufman point out that the working memory construct itself changed, because one subtest was eliminated from it, Arithmetic, one was added, Running Digits, and one was substantially modified, Digit Span, now called Digit Sequencing. Third, Digit Span became three subtests, and only the sequencing task reaches the Full Scale IQ. Fourth, the two removals come with stated reasons. Pearson says Picture Completion went to decrease the emphasis on speed and to make room for Set Relations, Running Digits, Symbol Span and Spatial Addition, and Cancellation went in favor of the motor-free Naming Speed Quantity.

Smaller changes sit inside the survivors. Coding did not change, Symbol Search has new items and a new font and spacing, and Comprehension keeps its questions with updated sample responses and revised scoring criteria. Pearson also added later start points for examinees suspected of intellectual giftedness. None of these alters what a subtest is called, but each can alter what a raw score means, which is one reason a WAIS-IV subtest score and a WAIS-5 subtest score with the same name are not interchangeable.

The composition change also matters for any comparison across editions. In the counterbalanced study that Winter and colleagues analyzed, 186 people aged 16 to 90, with a mean age of 47.8, took both editions 7 to 134 days apart. Their mean Full Scale IQ was 101.6 on the WAIS-IV and 99.7 on the WAIS-5, a difference of 1.9 points. The authors note that changing the mix of subtests that contribute to the Full Scale IQ could change the size of that difference, so part of it may reflect what is added up and not only newer norms.

The same name does not mean the same shift. Trudel, Winter and Kaufman broke the same 186 person comparison down by subtest, in standard score units. By our arithmetic on their Table 3, the mean for Similarities was 4.5 points lower on the WAIS-5 than on the WAIS-IV, 98.5 against 103.0. Figure Weights and Symbol Search were each 4.0 points lower, Matrix Reasoning 3.5 points lower, and Arithmetic and Digits Backward showed no difference. Letter-Number Sequencing came out 2.5 points higher on the WAIS-5, 101.0 against 98.5. The authors express these gaps as per decade effects, from 2.8 points for Similarities to a reversed 1.6 for Letter-Number Sequencing. A subtest keeps its name while its norms, items and scoring move, and it moves by a different amount for each. A group mean is not a personal correction, and the page on how the WAIS-IV and WAIS-5 compare works through the norms and the score comparison. The page on the 15 WAIS-IV subtests describes the earlier battery in the same format as this one.

9 How do WAIS-5 subtest scores become index scores?

Each subtest raw score becomes a scaled score with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3, and the scaled scores of the right subtests are added and converted to a composite with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The sample report's profile chart runs scaled scores from 1 to 19, and the independent factor analysis by Canivez, Watkins, McGill and Dombrowski, discussed below, states the same two scales. The report prints a percentile beside each scaled score. With a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3, a scaled score of 7 sits near the 16th percentile, a 10 at the 50th and a 13 near the 84th, and the sample report prints the same percentiles for those scores. The page on how IQ scores are normed and the page on the 15 point standard deviation explain why the two scales have those units.

The five primary indices each add two subtests: Verbal Comprehension from Similarities and Vocabulary, Visual Spatial from Block Design and Visual Puzzles, Fluid Reasoning from Matrix Reasoning and Figure Weights, Working Memory from Digit Sequencing and Running Digits, and Processing Speed from Coding and Symbol Search. The Full Scale IQ adds seven. To confirm the subtest lists on this page, we added the scaled scores that the sample report prints for each of its 21 composites (the five primary indices, the Full Scale IQ and the 15 ancillary indices), using the subtest lists in Pearson's flyers, and every sum agrees with the sum the report prints.

The 15 ancillary indices come in three families, which Pearson's flyer and brochure group as expanded, domain specific and summary scores.

Pearson's ancillary flyer says each expanded index is for a closer look at a domain, for example when two subtests of a primary index differ unusually, or when an application requires it, such as learning disability determination in some states or admission to programs or organizations for intellectually gifted people. It says four of the new indices sample several domains and can help with special circumstances, such as extreme expressive language impairment or decline, or extreme motor impairment or decline, and with comparisons against measures of another construct such as memory or achievement.

Two more printed details affect how a reader should take these numbers. The sample report says its confidence intervals are calculated using the standard error of estimation. In the sample, the Verbal Comprehension Index interval extends 9 points below the score and 6 above it, a shape consistent with an interval built around an estimated true score rather than the obtained one. And Pearson's frequently asked questions say qualitative descriptors are useful for communicating with people unfamiliar with test results, but that they are only suggestions and are not evidence-based, and that other terms may be used. The sample prints a descriptor beside every composite, which is a convention of that report and not a finding.

10 How is a WAIS-5 subtest profile read, according to Pearson's sample report?

Pearson's sample report shows the order in which an examiner reads a profile: composites first, then which differences are statistically significant, then how common those differences are, and only then what the pattern might mean. The examinee is fictional: the report is stamped SAMPLE and describes a 70 year old. The report carries a copyright notice and a warning that it contains copyrighted material and trade secrets, so this section describes its layout and quotes only the few values that a sentence needs. A reader who wants the full tables should open Pearson's sample report itself.

The layout runs in five parts. A summary page lists every subtest with its raw score, scaled score, percentile rank, reference group scaled score and standard error of measurement, with the Full Scale IQ subtests in bold and the secondary subtests in parentheses. A composite page gives the sum of scaled scores, the score, the percentile rank, the 95 percent confidence interval and a descriptor for the five primary indices, the Full Scale IQ and the ancillary indices, followed by profile charts. The primary analysis compares each index and each primary subtest with the examinee's own average and then compares them in pairs, at the .05 level of significance, with a base rate beside every difference. The ancillary analysis repeats the pairwise logic for ancillary composites and subtests. The last pages cover process scores, such as error counts and longest span scores, with base rates by age group.

The first reading is level against spread. In the sample, the five indices span 27 points, by our arithmetic on the printed scores, and the Full Scale IQ sits inside that range. The second reading compares each index with the examinee's own average. Verbal Comprehension is flagged as a strength with a base rate of 5 percent or less, and Working Memory as a weakness with a base rate of 25 percent or less, yet the report still prints the descriptor Average beside the Working Memory score. A weakness is relative to the person's own mean and not to the population. The Working Memory flag also rests on a gap of 10.4 points against a critical value of 10.37, which shows how close to the line a flag can sit.

The third reading goes down to subtests. Against the mean of the 10 primary subtests, only Vocabulary is flagged in the sample, as a strength with a base rate of 5 percent or less. The fourth reading is pairwise. Four of the ten index pairs are significant, and all four involve Verbal Comprehension. The ancillary comparisons add one case worth reading slowly. The General Ability Index and the Cognitive Proficiency Index differ by 11 points against a critical value of 10.59, so the difference is significant, yet its base rate is more than 25 percent. A difference can be statistically reliable and still common.

That last point is the reason base rates exist. The handbook's WISC-V chapter makes the same argument for the Wechsler family: not all statistically significant differences are clinically meaningful, some cognitive variability is typical, and base rate data help judge how rare a significant difference is. The sample report says the base rates in its primary analysis are reported by ability level. Pearson's WAIS-IV page gives a rule of thumb for the earlier edition that illustrates the logic: a base rate under 10 percent is a prompt for further hypothesis testing and not a conclusion.

11 What can a single WAIS-5 subtest score tell you, and what can it not?

A single subtest score is a short sample of one task, and the evidence supports reading the Full Scale IQ with far more confidence than any one subtest or index. Start with the precision that Pearson itself prints. The sample report lists a standard error of measurement beside every subtest, from 0.67 scaled score points for Set Relations to 1.47 for Symbol Search. Multiplying by 1.96, our arithmetic, gives roughly 1.3 to 2.9 points either way. The critical values the report uses to compare subtests all exceed two scaled score points, so no subtest gap smaller than about two points reaches significance anywhere in the sample.

The composite is steadier. Winter, Trudel and Kaufman report that the mean reliability of the Full Scale IQ averaged .97 across the age range, and that the stability coefficient was .93 for 201 individuals tested twice, with an average interval of 29 days. Those are figures for the composite, not for single subtests. Pearson's frequently asked questions say the Full Scale IQ is generally the first choice for an ability-achievement discrepancy analysis because it provides the broadest sample of behavior. The page on reliability and validity explains what such coefficients do and do not cover.

The burden of proof for anything finer sits in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Standard 1.14 says that when a test suggests interpreting subscores, score differences or profiles, the rationale and relevant evidence for that interpretation should be provided. Its comment adds that evidence for the validity of separate scores does not by itself justify interpreting the difference between them. A subtest profile is exactly that kind of reading.

The independent evidence on the WAIS-5 structure is, so far as we could find, one study, and it is critical. Canivez, Watkins, McGill and Dombrowski ran exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the 20 subtests using the correlation matrix and descriptive statistics for the 2,020 person standardization sample that the technical manual publishes. Their abstract reports that the analyses did not support five latent factors with separate Visual Spatial and Fluid Reasoning factors. A four-factor model in which those two merged, with measurement dominated by a general intelligence factor much like the WAIS-IV, was supported instead, and a bifactor model with four group factors fit best. In the published article, the general factor accounted for between 17.4 percent of the variance of Naming Speed Quantity and 55.1 percent of Figure Weights in the exploratory decomposition. In the best fitting confirmatory model, the exceptions to the rule that most subtest variance goes to the general factor were Running Digits, Coding and Naming Speed Quantity. The article also reports that Symbol Span and Spatial Addition lined up with the perceptual factor and not with working memory, and that the model based reliability of the general factor was .887, against .069 to .361 for the four group factors, which the authors judged too low to support confident clinical interpretation of the group scores. Their conclusion is that primary, if not exclusive, interpretation of the Full Scale IQ is supported, and that broad interpretation of the index scores needs more evidence on stability, incremental prediction and diagnostic utility.

Three cautions keep that finding in proportion. The analysis used the manual's published summary statistics and not raw data, so it could not test whether the structure holds across groups, as the authors say. It comes from a research group that reports similar conclusions about other Wechsler scales, which its own reference list shows. And Pearson's manual, as these authors describe it, tested only models with five group factors, while Pearson's product page says the structure was shaped by contemporary structural models, neurodevelopmental theory, neurocognitive research, clinical utility and factor-analytic studies. The earlier edition had the same dispute. Gignac and Watkins found that a bifactor WAIS-IV model fit better, with a model based reliability of .86 for the Full Scale IQ and .13 to .47 for the four index scores, and said clinical interpretation of the index scores is probably not justifiable. Weiss and colleagues, cited above, found a five-factor reading fit better than a four-factor one. A fair summary is that the case for the Full Scale IQ is the strongest and that what the separate indices add is an open question.

A score also depends on conditions. Taking a Wechsler scale twice is not a repeat of the same measurement. In the manual's retest study of 201 people aged 16 to 90, as Winter, Trudel and Kaufman summarize it, the mean Full Scale IQ gain after an average of 29 days was 3.7 points at ages 16 to 34 and at ages 35 to 69, and 2.3 points at ages 70 to 90. Their table puts the WAIS-IV gains at 4.4 to 5.0 points below age 70 and 3.9 at ages 70 to 90, and they note that, unlike the Flynn effect, practice has no agreed numerical correction. Estevis, Basso and Combs retested 54 participants, with a mean age of 20.9, on the WAIS-IV after three or six months and reported Full Scale IQ gains of about 7 points and Processing Speed Index gains of about 9, which they attributed to practice and not to real change. Pearson says the WAIS-5 norms were collected in person, so remote administration deviates from the standardized procedure, and it says the norms come from people whose primary language is English. The page on reporting IQ in research covers what a paper should state beside a Wechsler score.

12 Where ACIS sits, and what a buyer should do

We sell ACIS, a separate online assessment, so read this section as a disclosure and check it against the rest of the page: ACIS is not a WAIS-5, does not produce WAIS-5 scores, and cannot replace an examiner administered instrument where one is required. It has 20 subtests in six domains, reported as a Full Scale IQ and six primary indices: Verbal Comprehension, Fluid Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual Spatial, Working Memory and Processing Speed. Indices and the Full Scale IQ sit on the standard scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, subtest scores are scaled 1 to 19 with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3, and the report gives percentiles and a 95 percent confidence interval. Adult norms cover ages 16 to 90. The technical manual holds the documentation, and this page quotes none of its figures.

Prices and terms below were read on October 6, 2026 and can change. Quick costs 15 dollars for 6 subtests in 3 domains and takes about 45 minutes. Optimized costs 30 dollars for 13 subtests in 5 domains and takes about 110 minutes. Full Scale costs 50 dollars for all 20 subtests in six domains and takes about 175 minutes. Each is a one time payment with no subscription, breaks are allowed, there is a free trial with no card, a 5 day quality guarantee and 30 days to complete.

The limits are as plain as the strengths. ACIS is online and unsupervised, so it has no examiner to observe, query or adapt. It is not a clinical or diagnostic instrument. It is not for hiring, school accommodations or admission to high IQ societies, and it is English only. The WAIS-5 differs on most of these points. Pearson sells it at qualification level C as an individually administered clinical instrument, it is co-normed with the Wechsler Memory Scale, Fifth Edition, and Pearson reports special group studies and validity studies against other measures. Where a school, clinician, court or agency specifies a WAIS-5, no online battery stands in for it.

The table lists only names and placements, which come from Pearson's subtest lists and from the ACIS subtest list. It does not compare tasks or scores.

Nine of the 20 WAIS-5 subtests share a name with an ACIS subtest, and the placement differs for one of them: Pearson lists Arithmetic under Fluid Reasoning, while ACIS reports its Arithmetic under Quantitative Reasoning. Going the other way, 11 of the 20 ACIS subtests have no WAIS-5 namesake: Antonyms, Synonyms, Visual Number Series, Logic Grid, Complex Relations, Mathematical Achievement, Layer Rotation, Spatial Comprehension, Digit Span, Alphanumeric Sequencing and Visual Sequence. Digit Span was the name of a WAIS-IV subtest that the WAIS-5 split into three, and the ACIS Digit Span subtest carries that older name, which is a fact about names and not about tasks. A shared name does not tell you that the items, the reference group, the scoring or the scale position are the same, so an ACIS subtest score and a WAIS-5 subtest score are never interchangeable. Our page on the Woodcock-Johnson V covers another professional battery with its own subtest structure, and the same caution applies to it.

The professional frame is the same for both kinds of instrument. The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA, APA and NCME, 2014) say in Standard 1.14 that evidence for a subscore, a score difference or a profile must accompany the interpretation, so a reader should ask any publisher, Pearson or ACIS, for it. Standard 6.7 puts the protection of test materials on the people who hold them, which is why this page shows no item. The American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct asks, in Standard 9.06, that interpretation take into account the purpose of the assessment and the person's test-taking abilities and situational, personal, linguistic and cultural characteristics, and that significant limitations be stated. The association's Guidelines for Psychological Assessment and Evaluation, approved in March 2020, describe individual test performance as one piece of an assessment set in the context of presenting concerns, referral reason and background, and ask for tools with sufficient validity evidence and score reliability for their use.

Three practical steps follow. If an institution asks for a WAIS-5, ask what it requires and who may administer it, and read the page on who can administer an IQ test and the page on WAIS tests online before you pay anyone. If you already hold a WAIS-5 report, find the primary and secondary codes, read the Full Scale IQ and its interval first, ask which reference group each scaled score used, and treat the descriptors as conventions. If you are curious about the same domains, an online battery can answer that within its limits, and the free trial and the technical manual let you judge ACIS before you pay.

13 Sources Behind This Page

Every Pearson and research figure above is traceable to one of the following sources, and each is linked at the point where it is used. ACIS prices and terms were read on the ACIS home page on October 6, 2026. Pearson pages and documents were read on October 6, 2026, and Pearson can change them. Where a number is our own arithmetic on published figures, the text says so. The independent factor analysis was read in the journal typeset version hosted by its lead author, and its abstract was checked against the publisher's record. The sample score report is a publisher's illustration and not a real person, and this page quotes only a few of its values.

• Pearson. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (WAIS-5): product page with publication date, age range, completion times, kit contents, subtest descriptions and frequently asked questions. pearsonassessments.com, read October 6, 2026.
• Pearson. WAIS-5 publisher documents: overview brochure, WAIS-IV versus WAIS-5 comparison flyer, ancillary index scores flyer and by-the-numbers infographic.
• Pearson. WAIS-5 sample score report, a publisher's sample for a fictional 70 year old examinee, with subtest scores, composites, intervals, descriptors, strengths and weaknesses, base rates and process scores. This page describes its layout and cites only a few of its values.
• Pearson. Telepractice and the WAIS-5, guidance document, 2024.
• Raiford S E and Courville T. Equivalence of Q-interactive and Paper Administration of Cognitive Tasks: WAIS-5. Q-interactive Technical Report 16, Pearson, September 2024.
• Pearson. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) product page and its frequently asked questions, read October 6, 2026.
• Trudel S M, Winter E L and Kaufman A S. Digging in: Uncovering the subtest and composite level Flynn effect on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition. Journal of Pediatric Neuropsychology, 2025, volume 11, issue 2, pages 39 to 48.
• Winter E L, Trudel S M and Kaufman A S. Wait, Where's the Flynn Effect on the WAIS-5? Journal of Intelligence, 2024, volume 12, issue 11, article 118.
• Canivez G L, Watkins M W, McGill R J and Dombrowski S C. Construct Validity of the WAIS-5: Complementary Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses of the 20 Primary and Secondary Subtests. Assessment, published online February 16, 2026, volume and issue not yet assigned in the Crossref record read October 6, 2026.
• Flanagan D P and McDonough E M (editors). Contemporary Intellectual Assessment: Theories, Tests, and Issues, fourth edition, Guilford Press, 2018. Chapter 3 by Schneider W J and McGrew K S, pages 73 to 163. Chapter 9 by Wahlstrom D, Raiford S E, Breaux K C, Zhu J and Weiss L G, pages 245 to 282. Chapter 16 by Drozdick L W, Raiford S E, Wahlstrom D and Weiss L G, pages 486 to 511.
• American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association and National Council on Measurement in Education. Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association, 2014.
• American Psychological Association. Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, adopted 2002 and amended effective June 1, 2010 and January 1, 2017, Standards 9.06 and 9.11.
• APA Task Force on Psychological Assessment and Evaluation Guidelines. APA Guidelines for Psychological Assessment and Evaluation. American Psychological Association, approved March 2020.
• Weiss L G, Keith T Z, Zhu J and Chen H. WAIS-IV and clinical validation of the four- and five-factor interpretative approaches. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 2013, volume 31, issue 2, pages 94 to 113.
• Gignac G E and Watkins M W. Bifactor modeling and the estimation of model-based reliability in the WAIS-IV. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 2013, volume 48, issue 5, pages 639 to 662.
• Estevis E, Basso M R and Combs D. Effects of practice on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV across 3- and 6-month intervals. The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 2012, volume 26, issue 2, pages 239 to 254.

14 Frequently Asked Questions