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The C-Score
Who am I being compared to in my C-Score, domain scores, percentiles scores, and community insights?
Who am I being compared to in my C-Score, domain scores, percentiles scores, and community insights?

When we say a score is relative to the community, what does that mean?

Mike Battista avatar
Written by Mike Battista
Updated over a week ago

Your scores are relative to other people. Percentile scores for individual tests, domain scores, and community insights all rely on the database of community scores to put your own scores in context. The calculations for the C-Score involve relative scores, and you can view the community distribution of C-Scores by clicking "Community" in your brain profile.

Scores are compared to a community database of scores from tens of thousands of people and millions of test plays. This database is roughly representative of the performance of the general population.

The community scores are updated once per day, so you may see your percentile scores change slightly from day to day.

Does Every Test Score Contribute to the Database?

Every score counts, but we calculate the database based on median scores. This ensures that every user is treated equally, and people who take the tests many times do not dominate the database or skew the distribution to the high end, lowering everybody else's percentile scores.

Am I Being Compared to People My Age? Or People Who Have Taken the Test As Many Times as Me?

No. Currently, you are being compared to every person in the database. That includes test-takers of all ages, whether they are on their first attempt or their thousandth attempt at the tests. This means that, especially at first, your C-Score will get better with practice, because you are "catching up" to the scores of people who are highly familiar with the tests; see the FAQ "Will I get better at each test with practice?" Your C-Score will be most accurate after you have practiced all the tests for a while.

And yes, we are considering more granular comparisons, such as only comparing yourself to people your age. Stay tuned!

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