The History of the Rice Purity Test: Documented Versions, 1924-2026

This page is a documented history of the Rice Purity Test, from a 1924 student newspaper survey to the 100-question checklist that circulates online today. Each dated claim below comes from a named source, and the timeline marks every milestone as verified, disputed, or unverified so readers can see where the record is firm and where it is not.

This is a research page, not a quiz page. It does not host a test, does not collect answers, and does not promote any website. Readers seeking the current 100-question version can follow that link; everything else on this page is history and source documentation.

The name “Rice Purity Test” has been attached to several different documents over the past century. The 1924 item was a 10-question survey of 119 female undergraduates and is not the modern 100-question test; the two must not be conflated. Later print versions appeared in The Rice Thresher in 1974, 1980, 1988, and 1998, each with its own format and scoring. An online version became the dominant form in 2012.

The scope of this page runs from 1924 through 2026. Where a date or number is uncertain, the text says so directly rather than smoothing over the gap.

Timeline

The 1924 Survey

On 7 March 1924, The Rice Thresher published a 10-question survey under the headline “Rice Girls Not Quite Half Bad”. It was answered by 119 female undergraduates at Rice.

This survey is not the modern 100-question test. It predates it by more than six decades, used a different format, and had no modern scoring system. Treating the 1924 item as an early draft of the online checklist misstates the record.

The digitized issue of the newspaper is the primary evidence for the survey’s date, headline, question count, and respondent count. The full text of the 1924 survey is not freely transcribed, which limits what can be said about its individual questions. Because the questions themselves are not freely transcribed, comparisons between the 1924 items and later versions rest on format and context, not on question-by-question matching.

The Print Era, 1974-1998

The 1974 reprint

In 1974, the 10-question set was reprinted in The Rice Thresher with a mail-in slip for readers to return. The results of that mail-in were never published, so no findings from the reprint survive in the documented record.

The 1980 contest

In 1980, the paper’s misclassifieds advertised a “First Annual Rice Purity Contest”. The advertisement itself is documented. The record does not show whether the contest was repeated in later years or what form it took beyond the advertisement.

The 1988 version and the disputed question count

On 1 April 1988, the April Fools issue of the paper carried “The New and Improved 1988 Rice Trasher Purity Test” on page 8. The question count is disputed. A 2017 Thresher retrospective describes the test as 100 questions long, while the primary newspaper page and the Wikipedia article on purity tests describe it as 150 questions. This page presents both claims because the discrepancy is unresolved in the sources.

The 1998 version

On 13 November 1998, page 20 carried “The 100-Question Rice Purity Test” as the Backpage feature “Hey Alums… Can You Still Beat the Mean?”. The test used the term MPS, short for “Member of the Preferred Sex”, and scoring was the count of NO answers. The digitized newspaper page, held through the Portal to Texas History at UNT Libraries, verifies the date, page, title, terminology, and scoring method.

The 2011-2012 Revision and the Move Online

In 2011, Thresher editors refused to publish the annual version of the test, breaking the print-era sequence.

On 17 August 2012, Anthony Lauriello’s article “Release of new purity test long overdue” documented the revision of the test, recording the transition from the print tradition to a new online-centered form.

RicePurityTest.com became the online home of the test. Know Your Meme reports 2012 as the year the site became associated with the test, but the exact launch day is not verified, so this page dates the move to the year only.

How Scoring Worked Across Versions

Scoring changed with each version, so scores from different eras cannot be directly compared.

Equal weighting means that each “yes” answer lowers the modern score by exactly one point. For discussion of how modern scores are commonly interpreted, see this rice purity test score meaning guide. Interpretation frameworks apply only to the modern 100-question version and cannot be read back onto the earlier surveys.

The Digital Era

On 23 August 2017, Emily Abdow reported in The Rice Thresher that the purity test had evolved and spread beyond Rice. Her article reported that the site had received 1.5 million visits in 2017, documenting how far the test had spread beyond the university.

In April 2020, search interest in the test spiked, and in October 2020 TikTok videos showed families taking the test together, according to Know Your Meme. Together, the 2017 traffic figure and the 2020 spike trace the test’s path from a campus publication to a recurring subject of internet attention, about eight years after it moved online.

What the Record Does Not Show

Several basic facts about the test’s history remain undocumented. Stating them plainly:

• No named author of any version of the test has ever been documented.
• The full text of the 1924 survey is not freely transcribed.
• The exact launch day of RicePurityTest.com is unknown; only the year 2012 is reported.
• The results of the 1974 mail-in slip were never published.
• The 1988 question count remains disputed between sources: 100 versus 150.

Further primary sources, such as additional digitized issues of The Rice Thresher, may resolve some of these gaps. Readers who consult the primary sources directly should check dates and counts against the digitized pages, since secondary summaries do not always agree.

Sources and Bibliography

• The Rice Thresher, 7 March 1924 issue, Rice University digital collections.
• Emily Abdow, “Purity Test evolves, spreads beyond Rice”, The Rice Thresher, 23 August 2017.
• Anthony Lauriello, “Release of new purity test long overdue”, The Rice Thresher, 17 August 2012.
• “Purity test”, Wikipedia.
• “Rice Purity Test”, Know Your Meme.
• Know Your Meme explainer, 30 August 2023: “What Is the Rice Purity Test and What Do the Scores Mean”.
• “Purity Test, 1990s”, Rice PRIDE archival record, Woodson Research Center, Rice University.
• The Portal to Texas History, UNT Libraries: repository of the digitized 1988 and 1998 newspaper pages. Direct page URLs should be verified before being treated as exhibits.