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Exact score explanation

What a Rice Purity Test score of 89 means

89 = 100 − 11 checked

The short answer

A Rice Purity Test score of 89 means exactly 11 of the 100 items on the checklist were checked, leaving 89 unchecked. That works out to 11% of the checklist checked and 89% unchecked, because the checklist happens to hold exactly 100 items.

The result sits in the 7–23 checked band (a small share checked), which covers scores 77–93. The band is a navigation aid for this scale — it is not a percentile, a population comparison, or a statement about the person who took the test.

Score 89 at a glance

Score 89 out of 100
Items checked 11 items
Items left unchecked 89
Share of checklist checked 11%
Descriptive band 7–23 checked · A small share checked
Scores sharing this band 77–93 (17 scores)
Formula 100 − 11 = 89

Score position

This scale shows the score itself, not a population distribution or percentile.

0 score · 100 checked100 score · 0 checked

89

Score

11

Items checked

7–23 checked

Descriptive band

Exact calculation: 100 − 11 = 89

Where 89 sits between the bands

Between 7 and 23 of the 100 items were checked, leaving most of the checklist unchecked. This is the widest band in the upper half of the scale: it spans 17 different scores, so two people in the same band can be as much as 16 checked items apart.

  • 5 fewer checked items would raise the score to 94 and move it into the 3–6 checked band.
  • 13 more checked items would lower the score to 76 and move it into the 24–55 checked band.

Why 89 cannot identify your answers

Choosing which 11 of 100 items to check can be done in about 1.41 × 10^14 different ways, and every one of them totals 89. The score is a cardinality — a count — so it discards which items were selected the moment it is calculated.

For the same reason the total cannot show the context behind an answer, distinguish "no" from "preferred not to answer", or say anything definitive about a person's character, health, or safety.

How 11 checked items maps onto the checklist

The 100 items are grouped into five categories: Sexual (56), Social & Dating (15), Substances (14), Legal (11) and Academic (4). Those fixed sizes make some arithmetic statements about a total provable.

Minimum categories involved: One. 11 checked items fit inside the largest single category (Sexual, 56 items), so a score of 89 could in principle come from one category alone.

One possible distribution: every Academic item (4) plus 7 of the Legal items. That is an illustration of the arithmetic only — many other distributions give the identical total of 89, and this site never sees which items anyone checked.

Questions about a score of 89

What does a Rice Purity Test score of 89 mean?
A score of 89 means 11 of the 100 checklist items were checked and 89 were left unchecked. The score is the subtraction 89 = 100 − 11 checked, and nothing more is inferred from it.
How many questions did I answer yes to if I scored 89?
11 questions. Every checked item removes exactly one point from the starting total of 100, so the number of checked items is always 100 minus the score.
Is 89 a good Rice Purity Test score?
There is no good or bad score. 89 is a count of unchecked items on one particular 100-item checklist. This site does not publish a population average or percentile because it holds no documented representative dataset to support one.
Which questions produce a Rice Purity Test score of 89?
The score cannot identify them. There are about 1.41 × 10^14 different ways to check 11 of the 100 items, and every one of them totals 89, so the number alone never reveals which items were selected.

How the score is calculated

The formula, worked examples, and all six descriptive bands.

Methodology and sources

What is saved locally, what is claimed, and the limits of interpretation.

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