Dating a copy of the list
The new Rice Purity Test: what an “updated” copy actually changed
Nobody issues revisions of this list, so “updated” and “2026” are labels a site prints, not editions anyone published. One change is real and datable — the three questions about phones. Everything else that differs between copies is wording, and the four checks below tell you which copy you have without trusting a word of what the page says about itself.
The one change that is real
Three statements on the modern list could not have been written before mobile phones: an explicit text or instant message at 32, explicit photographs at 33, and explicit activity over video chat at 34. They sit together, in the middle of the sexual block, in the place a later editor would insert them. Every live copy this site compared carries all three; a photocopy from a campus in the nineties does not.
That is the whole of what the word “updated” honestly describes. It is also why an older score and a newer one are not the same measurement: three statements a person can tick did not exist to be ticked, so the same life scores three points higher on the older sheet.
Four checks that date any copy
All four are visible on the page in front of you, and none requires taking the test. They come from reconciling four copies that were live at the same time — the full comparison, disagreement by disagreement, is on the canonical question list.
1. Look at positions 32 to 34
Explicit message, explicit photographs, explicit video chat, in that order. All three present means a copy made after the list was revised for phones. Missing means you are looking at something older, and its scores run about three points above a modern one for the same person.
2. Look at item 69
Of the four copies compared, one prints the question in full, one reduces it to a bare question mark, one shortens the wording and one follows the majority. A censored 69 tells you the host edited the list for its own audience — which means the wording of other items on that page has been through the same hands.
3. Count how often “Member of Preferred Sex” is spelled out
The abbreviation MPS appears at items 25, 26 and 41. The majority of copies gloss it once, at 25, and use the bare initials afterwards. A copy that repeats the full gloss every time has been retyped by someone who did not recognise it — usually a sign the whole list was rekeyed rather than copied.
4. Read the first line
Two of the four copies open with the host site’s own promotional line sitting in position one as though it were a question. On those copies every number after it is shifted by one, so “question 44” there is question 43 everywhere else. If a friend’s numbers never match yours, this is usually why.
Why a year in the title means nothing
The list has no owner. Rice University never administered it and no organisation certifies it, which is the subject of a separate page here. With nobody to publish a revision, a year on a page is a freshness signal aimed at search engines rather than a statement about the questions. Two copies stamped with different years routinely contain the identical hundred statements.
The test that does have a date is a different document: Rice’s student newspaper printed a 150-question version in its April Fools’ issue in 1988, and reported a ten-question survey in 1924. Both sit in the university’s own archive, and neither is the 100-item list people take today.
What this site’s copy is
The 100 statements here were reconciled from four copies that were live at the same time, and the six points where those copies disagreed are written down rather than quietly resolved. Five of the six are punctuation or a repeated gloss; the sixth is item 69, the only place a copy censors rather than rephrases.
Nothing is reworded to be milder or harsher, and the list does not change after the fact. A moving question set would make every score recorded here incomparable with the last, and this site publishes figures from those scores — so the questions have to stay still for the numbers to mean anything. All 100 statements are readable in order, each with its own page.
Take the version described above
Same 100 statements, scored in your browser, nothing to sign up for.
Start the testQuestions people ask about updates
Is there a new Rice Purity Test?
Not in the sense of a released version. Sites publish the same hundred statements under headings like new, updated or 2026 because there is no maintainer to release anything — no person or organisation owns the list. What does exist is drift between copies, and the checks on this page tell you which copy you have.
Is there an updated Rice Purity Test for 2026?
No dated revision exists, from 2026 or any other year. No person or organisation maintains the list, so there is nothing to issue an update — a site that stamps a year on it is stamping a year on the same questions everyone else is hosting. What does differ between copies is wording, and those differences are old, not new.
What is the difference between the old and updated Rice Purity Test?
One difference is real: the three statements about explicit messages, photographs and video chat, at positions 32 to 34. A copy that predates smartphones does not have them, and every modern copy does. The rest of what circulates as an update is rewording — a gloss repeated or dropped, an article added, one item censored.
How can I tell how old a copy of the test is?
Read four places on the page: whether the phone items sit at 32 to 34, whether item 69 is printed in full or reduced to a question mark, whether the 'Member of Preferred Sex' gloss is repeated after its first use, and whether the first line is a question at all — two of the four copies this site compared open with the host's own promotional line, which shifts every number after it by one.
Why does this site not update the questions?
Because each statement is worth a fixed share of 100, so changing how many there are changes what every past score meant. A 100-item list scores one point per statement; add five questions and yesterday's 70 no longer describes the same person as today's 70. The wording was settled once, in the open, and left alone.