ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

IQ classification

IQ classification is a way of measuring how smart someone is. It's like putting a number on it so you can compare different people.

Imagine you're playing a game where you have to sort pictures based on how hard they are to remember. The easiest ones would be worth one point, medium ones would be worth two points, and the hardest ones would be worth three points. When you add up all the points for each picture, you get a total score.

IQ works in the same way, but instead of pictures, you answer questions on a test. The harder the question, the more points it's worth. But instead of one to three points, each question might be worth 10 or 20 points. When you add up all the points for all the questions, you get a score that represents how smart you are.

Now, because different people take the test and they get different scores, someone came up with a way to compare these scores to each other. They created categories to make it easier to understand.

For example, let's say you score 70 points. That puts you in the category of "Borderline Intellectual Functioning." This means you're not considered very smart compared to other people who took the test. But if you score 130 points, you're considered "Gifted." This means you're very smart compared to other people who took the test.

There are many categories in between these two, and they are based on how far above or below the average score you get. You can be "Below Average," "Average," "Above Average," or "Very Superior" depending on your score.

So, IQ classification is just a way of measuring how smart someone is and putting them into different categories based on their score.