(a)The number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in any armed force during any fiscal year whose score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the tenth percentile and below the thirty-first percentile may not exceed 20 percent of the total number of persons originally enlisted or inducted to serve on active duty (other than active duty for training) in such armed force during such fiscal year.
(b)A person who is not a high school graduate may not be accepted for enlistment in the armed forces unless the score of that person on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is at or above the thirty-first percentile; however, a person may not be denied enlistment in the armed forces solely because of his not having a high school diploma if his enlistment is needed to meet established strength requirements.
An AFQT score is derived from the ASVAB(essentially the militaries’ IQ test). IQ scores are based on a normal distribution of scores from the general population with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. So the 30th percentile represents an IQ score of 92 while the 10th percentile would correlate with an IQ of 81.
This is a myth. There IS a test, called the “Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)”, which is a competency test to see what jobs you would be suited for, but that is NOT an IQ test.
Sure, if you score badly on that test you will LIKELY have a low score on an IQ test, probably because something like 40% of American adults are illiterate or have low-literacy and that would impact your ability to do any test.
But the military does not IQ test.