What Is the Wonderlic Test? Scoring, NFL History, and How It Relates to IQ
The Wonderlic test is a 50-question, 12-minute cognitive ability test made famous by the NFL draft. Learn its history, scoring, and how it relates to IQ.
Dr. Russell T. WarneChief Scientist
Share
The Wonderlic test is a 50-question, 12-minute multiple-choice test of general cognitive ability, used in hiring for close to ninety years and made famous by the NFL draft. Scores run from 0 to 50, one point per correct answer, and a score of 20 is presented as average intelligence, roughly equivalent to an IQ of 100. Developed by Eldon F. Wonderlic, a Northwestern University psychology graduate student, in the mid-1930s and first distributed commercially in 1937, the test squeezes math, vocabulary, and reasoning items into one tight time limit. This article covers its history, how scoring works, its long run with the NFL, and how closely a 12-minute screener tracks a full IQ test.
A short history: from a Chicago apartment to 5 million test takers
Eldon F. (E.F.) Wonderlic built the test while a psychology graduate student at Northwestern University, and he and his wife began distributing it from their Chicago apartment in 1937. The idea was radical at the time: give employers one short, standardized measure of a job applicant's ability to learn, in minutes rather than hours. It spread quickly through American industry, and by 1961 more than 5 million people had taken it. The company he founded still describes itself as applying more than 85 years of talent assessment science.
How the Wonderlic is scored
Scoring is as simple as testing gets: one point per correct answer, no penalty for guessing, top score 50. The 12-minute limit does the real work. Most test takers do not reach all 50 items, which is why the average lands near 20 rather than near the middle of the raw scale. A 20 is presented as average intelligence, equivalent to an IQ of about 100, and NFL draftees averaged about 19 over the two decades before 2005.
What counts as a good score
Historical norm tables give the best intuition. The 1983 Wonderlic Personnel Test Manual listed median scores by occupation, from 14 for janitors and 17 for security guards up to 28 for teachers and reporters, 29 for programmers, and 32 for systems analysts. Those numbers are decades old and unofficial today, but the pattern is clear: most professional occupations cluster in the mid-to-upper 20s, so a score above 30 is strong. We break the numbers down further in our guide to the average Wonderlic score.
The Wonderlic and the NFL
Tom Landry and the 1970s
Legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry is credited as the first to use the Wonderlic to evaluate NFL players, in the 1970s, and several teams had adopted employment testing by then. The logic was straightforward: playbooks are thick, schemes change weekly, and a quick measure of learning ability seemed like useful scouting data.
The combine years and the famous leaked scores
The Wonderlic was administered at the first NFL scouting combine in 1982, then called the National Invitation Camp, and at every combine after it for four decades. The league and the company never officially release individual results, so every famous score is a leak. As reported by the media: Harvard punter Pat McInally is the only player known to have answered all 50 questions correctly, and quarterbacks Ryan Fitzpatrick and Benjamin Watson reportedly scored 48. Treat every such number as unverified.
Why the NFL dropped it in 2022
The league removed the Wonderlic from the combine beginning in 2022, a change communicated in a memo to teams reported by the Associated Press. The research backdrop: Lyons, Hoffman, and Michel (2009) examined Wonderlic scores and NFL outcomes and found no significant relationship between scores and later NFL performance. That result says more about football than about testing. "Range restriction" (the statistical shrinking of correlations when a group has already been heavily filtered) plus the physical nature of the game means cognitive scores had little room to add predictive value for elite athletes, even though general ability predicts performance well in ordinary jobs.
Is the Wonderlic an IQ test?
Functionally, it is close. Dodrill (1981) evaluated the Wonderlic against the WAIS, the standard professional adult IQ battery, in 120 normal adults and found correlations of .93 and .91 with Full Scale IQ across his main and cross-validation groups. Those are remarkably high figures for a 12-minute group test, and they show that a brief, well-built screener can capture most of what "g" (the general factor of intelligence) contributes to a full battery. The difference is in what you get back: the Wonderlic yields a single speeded score with no profile of strengths and weaknesses, so it works as a screening tool rather than a clinical instrument. Whether employers should use tests like it at all is a separate question; we weigh the evidence in our article on IQ tests in hiring.
The Wonderlic today
Wonderlic, Inc. no longer sells the classic score-report test to employers. Its current flagship, Wonderlic Select, wraps cognitive items into a multi-measure hiring assessment and no longer gives candidates one simple numerical score. Readers who want a modern measure with a real score and real norms have better options anyway: the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test from RIOT IQ is a validated, full-length assessment, and you can start with the free IQ test. For how the two products differ, see our RIOT IQ and Wonderlic comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good Wonderlic score?
Scores run from 0 to 50, and 20 is presented as average, roughly an IQ of 100. Historical norm tables put most professional occupations in the mid-to-upper 20s, so scores above 30 are strong. Very few test takers finish all 50 questions in 12 minutes.
Is the Wonderlic test an IQ test?
It is a brief cognitive ability test that correlates very highly with full IQ tests; Dodrill (1981) reported correlations of .91 to .93 with WAIS Full Scale IQ. It is best described as a fast screening measure of general cognitive ability rather than a full clinical IQ battery.
Does the NFL still use the Wonderlic test?
Not at the combine. The league removed the Wonderlic from the scouting combine beginning in 2022, a change reported by the Associated Press from a league memo. Individual teams may still use their own assessments.
What was the highest Wonderlic score in NFL history?
According to media reports, punter Pat McInally of Harvard is the only player known to have scored a perfect 50, and Ryan Fitzpatrick and Benjamin Watson reportedly scored 48. The NFL and Wonderlic never confirm individual scores, so all player numbers are leaked and unverified.
How long is the Wonderlic test?
The classic Wonderlic Personnel Test is 50 multiple-choice questions in 12 minutes, covering math, vocabulary, and reasoning. The modern employer product, Wonderlic Select, folds cognitive items into a longer assessment without a single public score.
Can you study for the Wonderlic test?
Practicing the format and pacing helps you avoid losing points to unfamiliarity, since the 12-minute limit is the main obstacle. The test measures general cognitive ability, which coaching does not meaningfully raise, so score gains from prep are modest.
References
1. Dodrill, C. B. (1981). An economical method for the evaluation of general intelligence in adults. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49(5), 668-673. eric.ed.gov
2. Foxworth, D. (2017, March 3). Are the Wonderlic and other psych tests really useful for the NFL? Andscape. andscape.com
3. Lyons, B. D., Hoffman, B. J., & Michel, J. W. (2009). Not much more than g? An examination of the impact of intelligence on NFL performance. Human Performance, 22(3), 225-245. doi.org/10.1080/08959280902970401
4. Mirabile, M. P. (2005). Intelligence and football: Testing for differentials in collegiate quarterback passing performance and NFL compensation. The Sport Journal. thesportjournal.org
5. Northwestern University. (2010, Spring). Are you smarter than an NFL quarterback? Northwestern Magazine. northwestern.edu
6. Psychologia. (n.d.). All about the Wonderlic test, scores, samples, and practice.psychologia.co
7. Sports Illustrated. (2022, January 5). Report: NFL to stop using Wonderlic test at 2022 combine.si.com
8. Wonderlic, Inc. (n.d.). About Wonderlic.wonderlic.com
Hero image: Bryce Young speaks to reporters at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine, the event where the Wonderlic was administered from 1982 until 2022. Photo by the Tennessee Titans, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Take our professional IQ test
Want to know your IQ? Try the first ever professional online IQ test.
