Are you sure? https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2024/01/so-youre-interested-in-the-national-iq-of-a-country-what-do-you-do/ > Another possible explanation of Iran’s math Olympiad performance is that Iran contains multiple ethnic groups, or subgroups, and that some of these are quite bright in comparison to the rest of the population. This gives the country a large smart fraction score (i.e., a relatively large number of smart people relative to the expectation based on the average intelligence). In our 2022 study, we computed smart fraction scores for most countries based on the student achievement test data (data from Rindermann’s meta-analysis): >Iran doesn’t have a notable smart fraction, so this hypothesis seems unable to explain the stellar performance of Iran in the math/science Olympiads. > Summary > > - It’s easy to check what data lies behind a given estimate of national IQ using Becker’s 2019 database. > - Iran’s national IQ of about 84 seems low given their performance in the math Olympiad. However, since all the national IQ estimate for Iran are very similar, and the overall level of development of the country is about what one would expect based on an IQ of about 84, the value is likely accurate. > - Iran doesn’t appear to have a large smart fraction that can explain their good performance on the math Olympiad. Instead, the explanation is probably that that the Iranian government thinks it’s important to win this prize, so they use talent searches to find the best students, and use government money to sponsor teams.