Rice Purity Test History: Where Did It Come From?

The Rice Purity Test feels like a product of the internet age, but its story starts more than a century ago, in a college newspaper. The version most people take today, with its 100 yes-or-no questions, is the latest link in a chain that runs through a 1924 student survey, mid-century campus humor, the early web, and a TikTok revival. This is the history of how it all happened.

If you have not taken the test yet, try the Rice Purity Test quiz first, then come back to see where it all began.

The 1924 Rice Thresher Survey: Where It All Began

The earliest ancestor of the test appeared in the Rice Thresher, the student newspaper of Rice University in Houston, Texas. In 1924, the paper published the results of an informal ten-question survey of 119 female undergraduates. The questions were things like “Have you ever been drunk?”, “Did you ever dance conspicuously?”, and “Have you ever done anything that you wouldn’t tell your mother?”

It was not a quiz you graded yourself. It was a campus news item, presented as survey results with a playful edge. The headline reportedly read “Rice Girls Not Quite Half Bad.” What made it stick was not the data, which was informal and unverified, but the format: a numbered list of yes-or-no questions about behavior, with your answers adding up to a score. That format survived for a hundred years.

Source: Wikipedia’s Purity test article, citing the March 7, 1924 issue of the Thresher.

Why Is It Called the Rice Purity Test?

The “Rice” in the name is Rice University, not the grain. The test kept the school’s name because it started there and kept spreading from there. That is worth clearing up, because it is the single most common question about the test’s name.

It is also why the test is often called “the Rice purity test” rather than just “a purity test.” Similar questionnaires popped up at other schools under their own names, the “Virtue Test,” the “Official Purity Test,” and plain “purity test”, but the Rice version became the famous one, so the Rice name became the brand.

From Campus Joke to University Tradition

Over the middle decades of the 1900s, purity tests spread to universities beyond Rice. Folklorists documented them as a form of “questionnaire parody,” a humorous genre that reflected how social norms were shifting at each school. A few documented stops along the way:

• In 1935, Columbia University’s humor magazine The Jester reported on a campus-wide purity test at Barnard College. The issue was briefly censored until a university director reviewed the article.
• In 1936, students at Toronto University took a purity test of twenty personal questions, with marks lost for smoking, drinking, and kissing, subtracted from a hundred to get a “purity ratio.”
• A 1975 book by folklorists Alan Dundes and Carl Pagter reprinted a “Virtue Test” circulated at Indiana University in 1939 and a more recent “Official Purity Test” from the California Institute of Technology.

Back at Rice, the Thresher kept revisiting the test. The paper revised and expanded it many times, usually as a satirical feature on its joke page, called the “Backpage.” By 1988 the list had grown to 150 questions, and the paper continued publishing versions most years through at least 2012. Each generation of students rewrote the questions to fit its own time, which is why the list never stopped changing.

Sources: Wikipedia’s Purity test article, citing the Columbia Spectator (1935), The Indian Express (1936), Dundes and Pagter (1975), and the Rice Thresher (1988).

The Test Goes Online

Purity tests began circulating on early computer networks around 1980, and the first web-based test appeared in 1994. The online era changed the test in two big ways. First, it stopped being tied to a single campus, so anyone with an internet connection could take it. Second, sites started copying the list from each other, which meant dozens of slightly different versions began floating around under the same name.

The 100-question version, the one most people recognize today, took its current shape in this era. The Rice Thresher’s own reporting says the 100-question edition was published online in 2012. At Rice itself, the test became part of orientation traditions, the kind of thing new students compared with each other during their first weeks on campus.

Source: the Rice Thresher (2017), cited on Wikipedia.

The TikTok Revival

Like many internet classics, the test got a second life on social media. In 2021, The Independent reported that Gen Z TikTok users had enthusiastically taken up a 100-question Rice purity test, posting scores and reactions. A test born in a 1924 newspaper was suddenly a viral trend among teenagers worldwide.

The revival also brought scrutiny. In 2024, the student newspaper The Trail published a critique arguing that the test, however fun it seems, can reinforce outdated judgments about behavior. The debate itself is part of the test’s history: every era has taken the format, enjoyed it, and argued about what it means.

Source: Wikipedia’s Purity test article, citing The Independent (2021) and The Trail (2024).

Why the List Keeps Changing

No company or institution owns the Rice Purity Test. That is the whole reason the list never settles. Because there is no official version, every site that publishes one writes its own copy: rewording items, adding new ones, cutting old ones, or reordering the list. The Thresher itself revised the test nearly every year, so change was baked in from the start.

That also explains why two sites can give you two different scores, which we cover in our guide to how the test works. Same name, different lists, different numbers.

Key Dates in Rice Purity Test History

• 1924: The Rice Thresher publishes a ten-question purity survey of 119 female Rice undergraduates.
• 1935: Columbia’s Jester reports on a purity test at Barnard College.
• 1936: Toronto University students take a twenty-question purity test.
• 1939: A “Virtue Test” circulates at Indiana University.
• 1975: Folklorists Dundes and Pagter publish purity tests as “questionnaire parody.”
• 1980: Purity tests begin spreading on early computer networks.
• 1988: The Thresher’s version grows to 150 questions.
• 1994: The first web-based purity test appears.
• 2012: The 100-question version is published online.
• 2021: Gen Z revives the test on TikTok.

The Bottom Line

The Rice Purity Test is a hundred-year-old idea that keeps finding new audiences. It started as a newspaper survey in 1924, became a campus tradition, went online in the 1980s, and went viral on TikTok in 2021. Every step changed the questions, but the core stayed the same: a long list of yes-or-no questions and one number at the end. Now that you know the history, you can take the quiz and look up what your score range means.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the Rice Purity Test created?

The earliest version dates to 1924, when the Rice Thresher student newspaper published the results of an informal ten-question survey of 119 female undergraduates at Rice University. The modern 100-question version was published online in 2012.

Why is it called the Rice Purity Test?

It is named after Rice University in Houston, Texas, where the test originated. “Rice” refers to the school, not the grain.

Who owns or makes the test?

Nobody. There is no official owner. The Rice Thresher revised the test many times over the decades, and today every website that publishes a version maintains its own copy with its own wording and questions.

When did the 100-question version appear?

According to the Rice Thresher’s own 2017 reporting, the 100-question version was published online in 2012. Earlier versions had different lengths, including a 150-question edition in 1988.

Is the Rice Purity Test affiliated with Rice University today?

No. It began in the student newspaper, but it is not run or endorsed by the university. Online versions are independent copies with no connection to Rice.

Why do different websites have different questions?

Because there is no official master list, every site copies and edits its own version. Sites reword, add, cut, or reorder items, so you are often not answering the same 100 questions.

Is the test scientific?

No. It has never been validated as a measurement of anything. It started as a student newspaper feature and works best as entertainment and a conversation starter.