As a child grows up, he/she is exposed to a large set of expectations, challenges, and temptations. The notion of college life encompasses all three. From an early age, college life has been glamorized as the best time of one’s life.
Children are exposed to this idea by adults around them, the teenagers gearing up to college around them and the numerous coming of age stories that they watch on TV eagerly.
TV paints a picture of college life, as a time of experimentation, to let go, wild and leaving behind innocence in a blazing trail of over the top, exciting and sometimes not entirely legal adventures.
Universities themselves also perpetuate the stereotype that universities are the hotbed of experimentation and demand an entirely new way of life, which is free of mundane routinized elements.
This is reflected particularly in the Rice Purity test, which has become a common feature of induction into college life at the beginning of a school year and is targeted particularly at freshmen.
Purity tests have become a national phenomenon that has garnered increasing popularity over the last couple of years.
These have been described as self-assessments – a graded survey that calculates the degree of innocence an individual has in terms of worldly things like doing drugs, having sex, practicing deceit and other vices.
It’s based on a percentage scale. The numbers are the end of the spectrum is extremes, with 100% being the purest and 0% being the least pure.
The purity tests are taken by individuals themselves, simply requiring a yes or no answer to a list of hundred ‘Have you ever…’ questions.
Purity tests have existed since well before the Internet, making their first appearance in the 1930s. Their popularity, however, increased over time, as social values and rule about virtuosity became much more relaxed and conservatism took the back seat.
The test that survived the test of time is the extremely popular Rice Purity test. The Rice Purity test owed its newfound fame in the 1980s to the invention of the Internet. It’s origins, however, are quite interesting.
It was actually started as a survey of a hundred questions at Rice University, Huston, Texas. The purpose of this was to gauge how the experience of university life was shaping individual life and whether they had made progress during their time spent in a university environment.
Alternatively, it was a way for university seniors in collaboration with the Pathetic Losers club to see how innocent the incoming influx of students was. Historically, it has been used as a way to transition from O-week at the university to true university life in Rice University.
Taking the Rice Purity test has been a fun, voluntary activity during the induction week, as it serves as an icebreaker and allows students to bond through mutual experience or even mutual inexperience.
Furthermore, it serves as a way to track the progress an individual makes during their time in university.
The Rice Purity test is not, however, limited to Rice University. It has bled out and become an Internet sensation, becoming one of the most popular and most taken quiz to date.
Since the 1980s, many different variations of the purity test have emerged, and have become a staple. It’s fun, exciting nature has made it a necessary feature of the digital age and it has become part of the culture.
Individuals simply take the test for fun at parties, online and amongst friends. However, the Rice Purity test also comes with a warning…
Continue reading the article and discover all the Rice purity test questions on Mike Myers’ blog
