AO3 Purity Test
AO3 readers and writers, and anyone who wants to know how far into fandom they have actually gone. Scored the second you finish.
100 questions · 8 min · no ads · no signup
18+. Four statements name explicit fanfiction or the Archive's own content warnings plainly, without describing anything, so the list is written for readers 18 and over. 4 of the 100 are explicit. Under 18? Take the Teen Purity Test instead — same scoring, explicit items removed.
Check what you have done. Blank counts as no.
Reading habitsQuestions 1–24
Tags & filtersQuestions 25–44
Writing & postingQuestions 45–68
Comments & communityQuestions 69–86
The deep endQuestions 87–100
What is the AO3 Purity Test?
The AO3 Purity Test is a list of 100 statements about things people have done, scored by subtraction: you start at 100, tick everything that has applied to you, and each tick takes a point off. The number left over counts the statements you did not tick, which is the whole of what it measures.
Nobody owns or certifies the list, no organisation maintains it, and it has never been validated as a measure of anything — what a purity test is and why there is no official version set out what is actually documented, which is less than the internet repeats.
How the AO3 Purity Test works
You start at 100. Every statement you check costs 1 point.
There is no weighting and no hidden algorithm: 100 statements, 1 point each, 100 minus what you checked. Check every one and you finish on 0. Check nothing and you keep the full 100. A low number means more of the list has happened to you, not that you did anything wrong.
What the number does not measure: it counts experiences you have had, so it says nothing about your character, your values, your health or how good a partner, friend or student you are. Whether it measures anything at all is a longer answer, and it is not flattering to the format.
What the 100 statements cover
- Reading habits24
- Writing & posting24
- Tags & filters20
- Comments & community18
- The deep end14
The nine bands
Every whole number has its own page.
- UntouchedNothing on the list applied. That is the ceiling of the test.100
- Pure SoulA handful of the mildest statements applied, and nothing beyond them.95–99
- Mostly InnocentEnough checked to cover dating and kissing, and little past it.85–94
- CuriousDating is behind you and the bolder questions have started to land.70–84
- Average ExplorerThe middle of the scale: a third to just under half the list applied.55–69
- ExperiencedAbout half the list applied.40–54
- Wild CardThree fifths to three quarters of the list applied.25–39
- VeteranMost of the list applied; what is left is the specific and the rare.10–24
- Off the ChartsNearly everything on the list applied — the floor of the test.0–9
Other versions of the same idea
Same arithmetic, different question lists. Each one is scored and stored separately, so your results do not mix.
Rice Purity Test
Adults 18 and over who want the full, unedited 100-item list.
100 questionsTeen Purity Test
Students aged 13-17, and anyone who wants the version without the adult questions.
50 questionsCouples Purity Test
Couples at any stage who want a structured way to compare what they have actually done together.
50 questionsInnocence Test
Anyone who wants a life-experience score they can compare at a family dinner.
100 questionsCollege Purity Test
Undergraduates, and anyone who wants their university years scored rather than their whole life.
50 questionsLGBTQ Purity Test
LGBTQ readers and anyone who wants a list that does not assume how their dating life is shaped.
50 questionsQuestions people actually ask
Is this the official AO3 purity test?
There is no official one. Archive of Our Own and the Organization for Transformative Works do not run purity tests, and this site has no connection to either. This is a fan-made list of 100 statements about using the Archive, written for this site and published in full so you can see exactly what it counts.
What does a low score mean here?
That you have been in fandom a long time, not that you have done anything. The list escalates by depth of involvement: it opens with finishing one fic and ends with the things a decade produces — a work reposted without permission, a fandom left over its people, a deleted fic you are still looking for. Every tick costs 1 point, so a low number is a long history.
How is it different from the Rice Purity Test?
The classic list is 100 statements about life off the internet — dating, drinking, the police. This one is 100 statements about life on one website: 24 on reading habits, 20 on tags and filters, 24 on writing and posting, 18 on comments and community, and the last block on the far end of fandom. The two scores measure different things and comparing them means nothing.
Does it ask what I ship?
No, and no item asks whether a ship, a tag or a trope is acceptable — a purity test that grades opinions is an argument with extra steps. A few statements do name a genre, because reading or writing omegaverse or real person fiction is an experience the way a first kiss is on the classic list, and leaving them out would make the far end of fandom invisible. Nothing scores your side of any argument about them.
What is a typical score?
Expect the spread to be wide and lopsided. Eight of the writing statements need something posted, so a reader who has never published anything keeps those eight whatever else they have written; someone who posts, betas and takes part in exchanges falls through the block at once.
Is anything stored about my answers?
Nothing that could be traced to you, and nothing about what you read. Ticks are scored by JavaScript on your own device; what is submitted is the final number and which test produced it, with no account, name or address kept beside it. 4 statements name explicit fanfiction plainly, which is why the list is written for readers 18 and over.
What this list refuses to ask
Fandom already has enough tests of the wrong kind. Nothing here asks whether a ship is acceptable, whether a tag should exist, or which side of a discourse you landed on — three questions that would turn a checklist into a loyalty test. What is left is behaviour: what you have read, filtered, written, commented on and stayed up too late for.
The one thing the list does judge is depth, and it says so openly. A hundred means the Archive is new to you. A number in the teens means you have watched a tag of yours get wrangled, orphaned a work, and gone looking for a fic that was already gone. Neither is a verdict on anybody. Every list on this site is compared side by side, and the original 100-question test is on the front page.
Rice Purity Test Kit is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to Archive of Our Own or the Organization for Transformative Works.
After the number
Every score, explained
101 pages, one per whole number, with the bands and the questions that usually separate a 62 from a 58.
Live statistics
The distribution of scores submitted here, updated as people finish — no borrowed averages from other sites.
Writing on the test
Where the questionnaire came from, how the scoring shifted online, and what the numbers do and do not say.