For writers, editors and wiki editors
Checkable facts about the Rice Purity Test
Most of what circulates about this test is repeated rather than sourced. Everything below is either a document with a date on it or a statement about the limits of the record, and all of it is free to quote.
Six claims, with what backs each one
1. Rice University's student newspaper reported a ten-question survey of 119 women.
The Thresher, Vol. 9, No. 22, Friday 7 March 1924
A newspaper report of a survey's results, not a questionnaire printed for readers to take.
2. The same newspaper printed a 150-question purity test in its April Fools' issue.
The Rice Thresher, Vol. 75, No. 24.5, Friday 1 April 1988
The issue number 24.5 is the paper's own: it is a joke supplement, and the test is part of the joke.
3. No dated first edition of the 100-item list has surfaced.
Absence of evidence, stated as such
The 1980s date repeated across the web is not supported by any primary document this site has been able to find, and the two documents above are a different length from the list people take.
4. Rice University has never published, administered or endorsed the list.
The university's own record
The documented connection runs through the student newspaper, which is editorially independent of the institution.
5. Four live copies of the list disagree in exactly six places.
This site's reconciliation, published in full
Five of the six are punctuation or a repeated gloss. One — the item at 69 — is the only place a copy censors rather than rephrases.
6. Three statements on the modern list postdate mobile phones.
Items 32 to 34 of the reconciled list
Explicit message, explicit photographs, explicit video chat. A copy without them predates the revision, and scores from it run about three points higher for the same person.
Why there are no audience figures on this page
Sites in this niche quote averages — 70, 68, the mid-sixties — with no sample behind them. This one publishes an average only once a test holds 30 results and a distribution only past 600, and below those thresholds the statistics page says so instead of estimating.
The same rule applies to this page. The site launched in September 2026 and its figures are not yet publishable, so there are none here. When they are, they will be on the statistics page with the sample size next to them, and quotable from there.
What the site stores, for anyone writing about privacy
Three fields per submission: which test, the score, and the moment the row was written — plus an age band if the person chose to give one. No account, no cookie, no visitor id, no IP address, and the answers themselves only if the reader ticks a separate box that says so, in which case they arrive as a list of item numbers attached to nothing.
The ticks are counted in the browser; only a finished score is sent. A reader can watch that happen in their own network tab: a token request that carries nothing about them, the one POST that carries the score, and a second token request after it. Nothing else goes out. The about page names each line so the check can be run against a written expectation, which is the standard this site would like to be held to. How the site is built and the privacy policy spell out the rest.
Permission to reuse
Quote any text on this site, reproduce the comparison tables, and use the figures once they are published — in a newspaper, a wiki, a video or a class handout. Attribution with a link is enough; no permission needs to be asked for and none will be charged for. Corrections are welcome and get a dated note on the page they affect, which is how the corrections policy works.
Written and maintained by Alex Seot. Questions, corrections and interview requests: [email protected].
Suggested citation: “Rice Purity Test Kit, ricepuritytestkit.com” — or cite the specific page, since 7 tests, 100 question pages and 101 score pages each have their own URL.