The Innocence Test: The Purity Test's Gentler Cousin
Search for an innocence test and you will find a family of checklist quizzes that all descend from one ancestor: the Rice Purity Test. They keep its irresistible format — a long list of experiences, a box to check for each one you have lived, and a single score out of 100 — but swap the original's frank questions about sex, drinking and trouble for gentler ones about everyday life: things you did as a kid, small rules you have bent, harmless firsts. The result is the same game with the volume turned down.
How innocence tests differ from the Rice Purity Test
Three differences matter. First, the questions: innocence tests ask about ordinary experiences rather than adult ones, so their lists read more like a nostalgia trip than a confessional. Second, the list itself: the Rice test is one specific, standardised set of 100 questions that has been copied for a century, while innocence tests are a genre — every site writes its own, so two innocence tests rarely ask the same things and their scores cannot be compared across sites. Third, the framing: where the Rice test scores “purity” lost, innocence tests often present the same arithmetic as innocence kept.
None of that makes one better than the other — they are the same folk tradition at different intensities, and the Rice original has been spawning softer and stranger variants since the 1930s, when other campuses began writing their own.
Ready for the original?
If you have only taken the gentle versions, the classic Rice Purity Test is the real thing: all 100 standard questions, the traditional score bands explained on our score meaning page, and a category breakdown the variants do not offer. It does ask frankly about adult themes — that honesty is rather the point of the original — and your answers never leave your browser.
Innocence test questions
What is an innocence test?
An innocence test is a checklist quiz in the purity-test tradition that asks about everyday, mostly wholesome experiences — childhood habits, school life, small lies, silly dares — instead of the adult themes the Rice Purity Test is known for. You check what applies to you and get a score for how "innocent" you remain.
Is the innocence test the same as the Rice Purity Test?
No, but they are close relatives. The Rice Purity Test is the specific, century-old 100-question list from Rice University. Innocence tests are later, gentler imitations that borrow its format — a numbered checklist and a score out of 100 — while replacing the questions with softer ones. If a quiz just calls itself an innocence test without the Rice list, it is one of these variants, not the original.
How is an innocence test scored?
Usually the same way as the original: start at 100 (or 100%) and subtract a point for every item checked. Some versions flip the framing and count up toward an "experience" score instead, but the arithmetic — one point per checked item — is inherited directly from the Rice test.
Why do innocence tests exist?
Because the original's format is fun but its questions are frank. Innocence tests keep the part everyone enjoys — comparing checklists and scores with friends — while asking questions a wider audience is comfortable answering and sharing. They spread the same way the original did: dorm rooms first, then group chats and social feeds.