The Rice Purity Test at 14, explained for parents
Your child has probably shown you a number, or refused to. Here is what produces it: a list of 50 yes-or-no statements, 2 points off for each one ticked, starting at 100. Nothing is weighted and nothing is interpreted — the score is subtraction. This page accounts for every block on the list we publish, says what the adult version adds that ours leaves out, and gets to what a number can and cannot tell you about a fourteen-year-old.
Is there a Rice Purity Test for 14-year-olds?
No, and that is the whole problem with the search. The list that spreads under the name is a single fixed set of 100 statements written by and for college students: 60 of them describe sexual experience and 65 are explicit enough that this site marks them and puts an 18+ notice above the test. Nothing in it is graded by age, and no version of it is endorsed by a school, a university or anyone else. A fourteen-year-old who searches the name lands on that list, on this site or on any of the dozens carrying a copy.
What a fourteen-year-old usually wants is not the explicit list — it is the number their friends are comparing at lunch. That is why this site publishes a separate teen list of 50 statements about school, friendships, crushes, phones and curfews, scoring the same way out of 100, with no sexual statements at all and nothing flagged explicit. It produces a comparable number without asking a child about acts they have not reached.
The honest answer to “what score should a 14-year-old get” is that the question has no floor or ceiling worth quoting. The test asks “have you ever”, so it counts time as much as anything else, and a fourteen-year-old has had four years less of it than a college freshman the list was written for. A number from this age is a snapshot of a life that has barely started, which is exactly what makes comparing it to anyone older meaningless.
Where it came from, and why it spreads
The Rice Purity Test began as a paper questionnaire passed around Rice University: a hundred lines, one point each, meant as an icebreaker for first-year students. It moved online, then into group chats, and the format survived every platform it landed on for one reason — it converts private answers into a single comparable number. A teenager can post “84” without saying which boxes they ticked.
That is also why a teen version has to exist. The original list was written by and for university students and names sexual acts and hard drugs directly; 65 of its 100 statements are flagged explicit on this site, 57 of them sitting in the sexual block. A thirteen-year-old searching the test’s name finds that list first. The version we publish for teenagers keeps the arithmetic and replaces the content.
What the 50 statements actually cover
Counted from the published list, not summarised from memory. Every statement belongs to one of these blocks, and the blocks appear in this order:
| Block | Questions | Numbers | Points of the scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Romance & dating | 16 | 1–16 | 32 |
| Online & modern life | 11 | 17–27 | 22 |
| Rule-breaking & mischief | 15 | 28–42 | 30 |
| Law & consequences | 2 | 43–44 | 4 |
| Parties & nightlife | 2 | 45–46 | 4 |
| Alcohol & drugs | 4 | 47–50 | 8 |
The 8 strongest statements, word for word
These are the ones a parent usually wants to see before deciding. Nothing on the list is harder than this.
- 43.Taken something from a shop without paying?
- 44.Been somewhere you were not allowed to be, like a rooftop or a building site?
- 45.Been at a party with no adults in the house?
- 46.Stayed over at a friend's house without telling your parents the whole truth?
- 47.Tried a sip of alcohol?
- 48.Drunk enough alcohol to feel it?
- 49.Tried a vape or a cigarette?
- 50.Been in a room where people were smoking cannabis?
There is no sexual-experience block: no statement on the teen list describes a sexual act. None of the 50 carries the explicit flag used on the adult list. The romance block asks about crushes, being asked out, first kisses and breakups, and stops there.
How it differs from the adult list
The original, 100 questions
- 60 statements in the sexual block, named plainly.
- 65 flagged explicit about sex or drug use.
- Asks about hard drugs, arrests and being taken into custody.
- One point per statement, so a single tick moves the score by one.
Written for readers 18 and over. It is on our front page with that notice above it.
The teen version, 50 questions
- No sexual block. The romance block ends at kissing and breakups.
- Four statements cover alcohol, vaping and being in a room where people were smoking cannabis. No hard drugs, and none of the four asks about taking anything beyond a drink or a cigarette.
- School, phones, curfews and group chats take the space the sexual block had.
- 2 points per statement, so five ticks move the score by 10.
A score from this list is not comparable with one from the original — different questions, different meaning, same 0–100 scale.
Those four stayed in deliberately. Removing them would leave a list that no fifteen-year-old would take seriously, and a test nobody trusts gets abandoned for the adult one, which is the outcome worth avoiding.
What a score does and does not tell you
It counts, it does not judge
Every statement costs the same 2 points. “Held hands with someone you liked” and “drunk enough alcohol to feel it” are worth exactly the same, so the total cannot tell you which one happened. Only the individual answers could, and they are sent nowhere unless the sharing box is ticked — and even then they arrive as counts per statement, never as one person’s sheet.
Age drives most of the range
A thirteen-year-old has had four fewer years in which any of this could happen than a seventeen-year-old. That alone separates the two ends of the teen range, which is why a score compared against an older sibling or a senior at school is not a comparison at all.
Nobody answers it alone
These tests are usually taken in a group, and a number posted in a chat has been adjusted for that audience at least as often as not — in both directions. Treat a shared score as a conversation opener, not as data about your child.
What is stored
- The answers: nothing, unless the box below is ticked. Each checkbox is scored by JavaScript on your child’s own device, and by default the list of what was ticked is not sent at all. Nothing on our side ever holds one person’s answer sheet, so there is no such record to be requested, leaked or handed over.
- The score: one row. The final number and which test produced it, with a timestamp. No name, no account, no email and no IP address kept beside it.
- The age band: opt-in, and coarse. Beside the submit button is a picker that starts on “prefer not to say”. Choose one of the six bands — 13-17 upwards — and that string is stored in the same row as the score, so the by-age averages can be built from real submissions. A band that spans five years, next to a number and a time, names nobody.
- The per-question counters: opt-in, off by default. Above the submit button there is an unticked box offering to add which statements were checked to anonymous totals. Ticking it sends ids and nothing else, and the score is identical either way.
- On the device: unfinished progress in sessionStorage so a refresh does not clear fifty checkboxes, and past results in localStorage for the history page. Clearing browsing data erases both.
All of it is set out, mechanism by mechanism, in the privacy policy. There is no login on this site, so there is also no parent dashboard and no way for us to show you a result.
If your child shows you a number
Being shown a score is the good outcome — it is an invitation. The quickest way to close it is to treat the number as a list of charges.
Worth saying
- “What did most of your friends get?” — the comparison is the part they care about.
- “Which ones did you think were stupid questions?” — that gets you the content of the list, not the answers.
- “Do you want to see mine?” — only if you mean it, and only for the teen list.
- Nothing at all, if they showed you and moved on. Being shown twice is worth more than a discussion now.
Worth skipping
- Going through the list to work out which boxes produced the number.
- Reacting to the total as though a low score names a specific event — 2 points is one tick, and the list is mostly crushes and curfews.
- Comparing it with a sibling’s score, or with your own at that age.
- Making it the moment for a talk you were already planning. The score did not cause it and cannot carry it.
If one of the last four statements is what you are worried about, ask about that directly and separately, on a day the test is not involved. A test result is a poor excuse for a conversation you were going to have anyway, and using it as one teaches a teenager to stop showing you things.
Questions people actually ask
Is there a Rice Purity Test for 14-year-olds?
No age-graded version of the Rice Purity Test exists. The list that circulates is one fixed set of 100 statements written for college students, 60 of them about sexual experience, and nobody grades or endorses it by age. This site publishes a separate 50-statement teen list about school, friendships, crushes and curfews so that the number a younger teenager compares with friends does not come from the explicit one.
Is the teen purity test safe for my child to take?
The version on this site is 50 yes-or-no statements about school, friendships, crushes, phones, curfews and, in the last block, alcohol, vaping and one line about being in a room where people were smoking cannabis. None of them describe a sexual act, and none are flagged as explicit. The risk worth knowing about is not the wording — it is that the original adult list, which does describe sexual acts and hard drugs in detail, circulates under the same name and is one search away.
What should a 13- or 14-year-old get on the Rice Purity Test?
There is no should. The classic list is written for adults and names explicit sexual experiences plainly, so a thirteen-year-old's high score reflects not having had adult experiences yet — which is what being thirteen means, not an achievement or a failing. If a number is what is wanted, the teen list is the one written for that age, without those items. And a score is not a target: every statement is past tense, so trying to move the number means going and doing the things on a sheet somebody else wrote.
What is the average Rice Purity Test score for a 15-year-old?
This site does not publish one, and will not until it can. Figures here are split by age band rather than by single year, no band is published under thirty results, and the 13-17 band holds none yet. Numbers circulating elsewhere for a specific age come from small self-selected samples — the people who took a quiz and chose to be counted — which describes those people and nobody else.
What is a good score on the teen purity test?
There is no good score, and the arithmetic is the reason. You begin at 100 and every statement you tick removes 2 points, so the number counts how many of these 50 things have happened, nothing else. A 96 and a 72 describe two different amounts of ordinary teenage life, and the strongest single predictor of the gap is how old the person taking it is.
Why do teenagers take purity tests?
Because the output is one number, and a number can be compared. That is the whole mechanism: it turns a set of private answers into something you can post in a group chat and rank against friends without saying which boxes you ticked. Curiosity about where you sit among people your age is the ordinary reason, and it is why the format has outlived every platform it has spread on.
Is my child's result stored, and can I see it?
No, on both counts. The checkboxes are scored by JavaScript on the device, and what is recorded is one row: the final number, which test produced it, the time, and an age band only if the person taking it picked one from the optional list. Two things above the submit button are opt-in and both start off — a box that also sends which statements were ticked, so they can be added to public per-question totals, and that age picker. There is no name, account, email or IP address stored either way, and no login, which also means there is no parent view: if you want to see a result, you have to be shown it.
My child got a low score. Should I be worried?
Look at which block moved it before deciding. 16 of the 50 statements are about crushes and dating, so 32 points of the scale can come off without anything happening that you would not expect at that age. The last four statements — two about alcohol, one about trying a vape or a cigarette, one about being in a room where people were smoking cannabis — are the ones worth a calm conversation, and they are worth the same 2 points as "held hands with someone you liked", which is exactly why the total on its own tells you very little.
Read the list yourself first
All 50 statements are on one page, and you do not have to submit anything to read them. That is the fastest way to answer the question this page exists for: whether the version your child is taking is the one written for their age.