Rice Purity Test Questions, Explained

The rice purity test questions are easy right up until one of them isn't. You're ticking along past "held hands", then the test asks if you've been undressed by an MPS. Your thumb stops. What is an MPS? Does that count?

The people who wrote the 1988 version saw this coming. Their rule was "If you don't understand the question, add two points." I love that rule. It assumed confusion meant innocence, which, after eleven years of running orientation groups, I can tell you is not always true.

So here are the rice purity test questions explained, the full list of 100 in the same order as the Rice Purity Test on our homepage, grouped into the 10 categories your result uses. Under each list: what the category covers, the items people argue about, and the slang. No judgment about what you tick, except for three items at the very bottom.

How the 100 rice purity test questions work

The Rice Purity Test has 100 yes-or-no questions, each worth one point. You start at 100 and lose a point for every box you tick, so a lower score means more experience. The questions climb roughly from hand-holding to the criminal.

Our 100 items follow the order and scope of the Rice Thresher's official test, so scores line up, but the wording is plainer and 15 items carry a "?" button that decodes slang mid-test. The 10 rice purity test categories are our grouping, and what your final score means depends a lot on which ones did the damage.

What does MPS mean on the Rice Purity Test?

MPS stands for Member of the Preferred Sex: whoever you're attracted to. It appears in items 25, 26 and 41. The 1988 Backpage version said MOS, member of the opposite sex, which assumed every test-taker was straight. By 1998 it had become MPS. Small edit, big effect: a gay student showering with a boyfriend counts, a straight guy in a team locker room doesn't. The history of the Rice Purity Test is full of edits like that.

Why is question 69 just a question mark?

On the official Thresher page, item 69 is a lone "?", and has been since at least 1998. The joke is the number. Ours spells it out. If you have no idea what it means, the 1988 rule would hand you two bonus points.

Questions people search by number: 31, 69 and 100

Three numbers get searched on their own. Number 31 closes the Getting physical section: "Had an orgasm because of someone else?", which the official page words as an orgasm "due to someone else's manipulation". The question mark above is 69. The last item, 100, is the one people most want confirmed: bestiality, which is why the final stretch of the test reads as a descending ladder of the rarest acts rather than a checklist.

Dating & kissing (questions 1–14)

Questions 1 to 14 cover romance before anything sexual: holding hands, dating, relationships and every grade of kissing.

1. Held hands with someone romantically?
2. Been on a date?
3. Been in a relationship?
4. Danced pressed up close to someone?
5. Kissed someone who isn’t family?
6. Kissed someone who isn’t family on the lips?
7. French-kissed someone?
8. French-kissed in public?
9. Kissed someone’s neck, or had yours kissed?
10. Made out lying down?
11. Given or gotten a hickey?
12. Kissed someone’s chest, or had yours kissed?
13. Kissed someone below the waist?
14. Kissed for two hours or more without stopping?

Item 4 is usually written as "danced without leaving room for Jesus." It comes from church and school dances, where chaperones told slow-dancing couples to keep a gap between them wide enough for, well, Jesus. Danced pressed together? Tick it. Item 10, "kissed horizontally", just means making out lying down, on a bed, a couch or a beach towel.

Items 5 and 6 exclude family so nobody loses a point for kissing their grandmother's cheek. Item 13, "below the waist", worries careful readers. Most groups read it as anywhere below the belt line, thighs included; oral sex has its own items later (37 and 38).

Getting physical (questions 15–31)

Questions 15 to 31 are the biggest category, 17 items, moving from strip games through solo sex to being touched by someone else.

15. Played a game where clothes come off?
16. Seen someone, or been seen, in a sexual or sensual situation?
17. Masturbated?
18. Masturbated to a picture or video?
19. Masturbated while someone else was in the room?
20. Been caught masturbating?
21. Masturbated with an object or toy?
22. Watched or read porn?
23. Given or received a sensual massage?
24. Dry-humped someone with your clothes on?
25. Undressed someone, or been undressed, by an MPS?
26. Showered with an MPS?
27. Had your butt grabbed or fondled, or done it to someone?
28. Had your chest fondled, or done it to someone?
29. Had your genitals touched by someone, or touched theirs?
30. Had or given “blue balls”?
31. Had an orgasm because of someone else?

Five items (17 to 21) are about masturbation, which surprises people who assume this is a test about partners. Item 17 is the one people tick quietly and move past; the follow-ups are where friends' scores spread apart.

Item 16, seeing or being seen "in a sexual or sensual situation", usually means real life, not a screen: walking in on a roommate, or being walked in on. Porn has its own item (22). Item 24 is the old line "gone through the motions of intercourse while fully dressed", which everybody else calls dry-humping. Item 30, "blue balls", is the ache after arousal with no release; you tick it if you felt it or caused it.

Digital & sexting (questions 32–34)

Questions 32 to 34 are the shortest category: three items about sexting, nudes and sexual video calls. They're the only items that leave a copy behind.

32. Sent a sexually explicit text or DM?
33. Sent or received nude photos?
34. Done something sexual on a video call?

The 1988 test had nothing like these; there was nothing to send them on. Item 32 counts explicit words alone. Item 33 covers sending or receiving nudes, so technically an unsolicited photo counts. You can decide whether a stranger gets to cost you a point. I'd say no.

What I said in every healthy-relationships session still stands: anything you send can be screenshotted and forwarded, and sharing someone's intimate images without consent is illegal in many places. Any sexual image of a person under 18 is illegal to make or share, full stop. (Your answers here never leave your browser; our privacy breakdown explains how.)

Intimacy & close calls (questions 35–43)

Questions 35 to 43 are close calls and firsts: cheating, contraception, oral sex, spending the night and getting caught. Nine items, just before the test asks about sex itself.

35. Cheated on a partner?
36. Bought contraception?
37. Given oral sex?
38. Received oral sex?
39. Swallowed a partner’s sexual fluids?
40. Used a sex toy with a partner?
41. Spent the night in bed with an MPS?
42. Been walked in on during a sexual act?
43. Asked a roommate to leave so you could hook up?

Item 35 is one of the oldest questions in the test's whole life. The 1924 Thresher survey asked "Have you ever cheated?" and 58 of the 119 women said yes. It didn't say on what: a boyfriend, a chemistry quiz.

Item 36 counts condoms, the pill or emergency contraception, and I'd happily see everyone tick it. Item 41, "spent the night in bed with an MPS", means exactly that; sleeping is enough. Item 43 is "sexiling", asking a roommate to clear out so you can hook up. If you were the roommate in the hallway at 1 a.m., sorry, that doesn't count.

Alcohol (questions 44–48)

Questions 44 to 48 are about drinking, from a first sip to a blackout. Five items, and one of them descends directly from the 1924 survey.

44. Drunk alcohol outside a religious ceremony?
45. Played a drinking game?
46. Been drunk?
47. Pretended to be sober in front of parents or teachers?
48. Blacked out from drinking?

In 1924, only 4 of the 119 women surveyed said they had ever been drunk. Item 46 asks the same question today, and I suspect the ratio has moved. Item 44 has a built-in exemption: wine at a religious ceremony doesn't count, so communion is safe.

Item 47, acting sober in front of parents or teachers, gets the biggest laugh in any group, because everyone has a story involving chewing gum and a very careful walk. Item 48 is a blackout, a lost stretch of memory. I'll be the residence-life person for one sentence: drinking until your brain stops recording deserves more than a punchline.

Smoking & drugs (questions 49–52)

Questions 49 to 52 put smoking and drugs on a ladder: tobacco, marijuana, anything stronger, then a named list of hard drugs.

49. Used tobacco?
50. Used marijuana?
51. Used a drug stronger than marijuana?
52. Used meth, crack, heroin, PCP or horse tranquilizers?

Item 49 says tobacco, and the question I hear most now is about vaping. The wording predates vapes. A nicotine vape delivers the same drug, so many people tick it; a nicotine-free one is harder to argue. It's your call.

Item 50 still counts where marijuana is legal. Item 51, "stronger than marijuana", is the fuzzy one: people usually include cocaine, MDMA or mushrooms, and misusing someone else's prescription belongs here too. Item 52's "horse tranquilizers" usually means ketamine, a veterinary anesthetic. If 52 is a yes and still current, your score is the least important thing on this page.

Rule-breaking & the law (questions 53–66)

Questions 53 to 66 cover school discipline, public nudity, strippers and a long ladder of police contact.

53. Been sent to the principal’s or dean’s office for discipline?
54. Been on disciplinary probation or suspended?
55. Peed in public?
56. Gone skinny-dipping?
57. Gone streaking?
58. Seen a stripper?
59. Had the police called on you?
60. Run from the police?
61. Been questioned by the police?
62. Been handcuffed by the police?
63. Been arrested?
64. Been convicted of a crime?
65. Been convicted of a felony?
66. Vandalized something?

Read 59 to 65 as a staircase: police called, ran, questioned, handcuffed, arrested, convicted, felony. A felony conviction usually comes with most of the steps below it, so one event can be worth five or six points.

Item 59 gets underrated. If police showed up to your party over a noise complaint and it was your room, most groups count it. Skinny-dipping (56) is swimming naked; streaking (57) is running naked somewhere public. And in every orientation group I ran, item 55, peeing in public, was the one everybody had done and nobody wanted to admit first.

Sex (questions 67–79)

Questions 67 to 79 are about sex itself: whether it has happened, how often, how many positions, and where.

67. Had sex?
68. Had sex three or more times in one night?
69. Done a 69?
70. Had sex 10 or more times in total?
71. Had sex in four or more positions?
72. Had sex with someone you met less than 24 hours earlier?
73. Had sex in a car or another vehicle?
74. Had sex outdoors?
75. Had sex in public?
76. Had sex in a pool or hot tub?
77. Had sex in a bed that belonged to neither of you?
78. Had sex while your parents, or your partner’s, were home?
79. Had sex with someone else in the room who wasn’t joining in?

Item 67 never defines sex, and I'd keep it that way. In healthy-relationships sessions this came up every time, often from LGBTQ students for whom the narrow definition they grew up with never fit. Use the definition that matches your life.

Item 69 is the famous blank on the official page. Item 70, ten times, means lifetime, not with one person. Item 79, sex with someone else in the room who isn't joining in, is the dorm item: the roommate who was "asleep" is the usual story. One plain note: several items here go better with condoms, and the next category notices if you used them.

Adventurous sex (questions 80–91)

Questions 80 to 91 cover adventurous sex and sexual health: travel, age gaps, condoms, STIs, group sex and partner counts. Here, responsible and risky choices cost exactly the same point.

80. Joined the mile-high club?
81. Had a booty call with someone you weren’t dating?
82. Traveled 100+ miles mainly to have sex?
83. Had sex with someone 3 or more years older or younger?
84. Had sex with someone who was a virgin?
85. Had sex without a condom?
86. Had an STI test because you had a real reason to worry?
87. Had an STI?
88. Had a threesome?
89. Been to an orgy?
90. Had sex with two or more different people within 24 hours?
91. Had sex with five or more partners?

The mile-high club (80) means sex on a plane in flight. Item 82, traveling 100 miles or more mainly for sex, is the long-distance item: a weekend visit counts if that was the main point. Item 83, a three-year age gap, is about adults, a 19-year-old and a 22-year-old, never anyone underage.

Items 85 to 87 are the health trio: no condom, an STI test with real reason to worry, and having had an STI. Get the test anyway. Most STIs are treatable, campus health centers usually test confidentially, and a lost point is cheaper than the alternative.

The wild side (questions 92–100)

Questions 92 to 100 hold the rarest items, and the last three aren't wild at all: they're crimes. When people search for the worst rice purity test questions, this is the list they mean.

92. Been photographed or filmed during sex?
93. Had period sex?
94. Had anal sex?
95. Had a pregnancy scare?
96. Gotten someone pregnant, or been pregnant?
97. Paid for sex, or been paid for it?
98. Watched someone sexually without their knowledge?
99. Committed incest?
100. Engaged in bestiality?

The first six are consensual but less common. Being filmed during sex (92) should only happen with everyone agreeing, every time. Items 95 and 96 cover a pregnancy scare and an actual pregnancy. Item 97, paying for sex or being paid, is illegal in most of the US.

Then it stops being a party game. Item 98 is voyeurism, watching someone sexually without their knowledge, a crime in most places. Item 99 is incest. Item 100 is bestiality. These are abuse, plainly. They sit at the bottom because the test ramps up to its extremes. The 1988 version went further still, with questions about sexual crimes, and by 1998 the rape and molestation items were gone. If anything here was done to you, it isn't yours to tick.