Photo: Kite_rin / Shutterstock
By Micki Spollen — Written on Feb 22, 2022
Put a finger down if you’ve come across a ‘Rice Purity Test’ video on TikTok.
Purity tests first gained popularity in the 1980s as a way to test the taker’s innocence, and the Rice purity test is one of the most popular purity tests.
What is the Rice Purity Test?
The Rice purity test is a survey that assesses your innocence.
The test was developed by Rice University in an attempt to help students bond and track their maturation throughout their college years. Students could voluntarily take the 100-question test that involves checking off activities considered “impure.”
How to Take the Rice Purity Test
The test can be taken online. Simply scroll through a list of 100 activities that range from the relatively innocent, such as holding hands, to more extreme behaviors like using meth.
How the Rice Purity Test is Scored
The Rice Purity Test is rated on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being completely innocent and 0 being the least pure. The closer you are to a score of 100, the purer you are, with a “good” rice purity test score considered somewhere in the range of 85-91. Statistics show that an average score for all takers is 63.79 as of January 1, 2022.
While the test weighs your score (for example, being convicted of a felony is regarded as more impure than holding hands), generally, the more activities you check off, the less pure you are considered.
Rice Purity Test Score Ranges and What They Say About You
100 to 98
You are literally an angel that just dropped down from heaven.
97 to 94
Compared to most people, you’re extremely pure, with your biggest infraction likely being going on a date or dancing without leaving room for Jesus.
93 to 77
You’re still above average in purity but aren’t exactly prude.
76 to 45
You fall in the average range of purity, meaning you’ve lived life but probably haven’t gotten into hard drugs or been thrown in prison. Yet.
44 to 9
You’re officially below average in purity and probably have a few good stories to tell.
9 to 0
It’s a wonder you’re still alive and no one will ever mistake you for being pure.
While 0 is technically an option for a score, there’s currently no evidence that someone has honestly scored a 0 on the Rice purity test, being that would include bestiality and incest.
The test itself warns that it is “not a bucket list,” and that “completion of all items on this test will likely result in death.”
Despite being over 40 years old (in fact, the first version of the Rice purity test was developed in 1924), purity tests have seen a resurgence on TikTok, with people putting various spins on the test for viewers such as trying to get a zero on the test and guessing friends’ scores.
However, TikTokers have pointed out how outdated the test is, with two women going so far as to update the test in 2021 to include more modern indicators of impurity such as sexting and using fake IDs.
They call their new purity test The Innocence Test.
“I think there’s bestiality and incest on there. And we were like, ‘I don’t know if those are some things we think are super applicable,” Ella Menashe, one of the creators of the new innocence test, explains to The Student Life. “I hope not.”
As with all free online personality tests, while fun to take, the Rice purity test and innocence tests are for educational purposes only and shouldn’t be taken as fact.
Your score is not an accurate representation of your supposed purity or goodness as a person and is intended only for uses like comparison amongst friends.
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Micki Spollen is an editor, writer, and traveler. Follow her on Instagram and keep up with her travels on her website.