Your first answer feels certain. That's the trap.

The Cognitive Reflection Test gives you seven short questions. Each one has an answer that pops into your head immediately — and a correct answer you only find by checking it. Used in psychology and behavioral economics research since 2005.

No trick math skills required. If you can read, you can take this — the questions are built to fool careful people, not to test arithmetic.

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Where these seven questions come from

This test combines two published research instruments. The first three questions are Shane Frederick's original 2005 Cognitive Reflection Test — three numeric puzzles that each pair a fast, wrong, intuitive answer with a correct one that only appears on reflection. The last four are the verbal items added in 2014 by Maggie Toplak, Richard West, and Keith Stanovich, designed to catch the same reflective-override tendency in people who reflexively distrust math questions.

Items 1–3 · Numeric

The bat-and-ball, the widgets-and-machines, and the lily-pads problems — Frederick's original CRT (2005).

Items 4–7 · Verbal

The race, the sheep, Emily's sisters, and the hole — the CRT-2 extension (Toplak, West & Stanovich, 2014).

What "reflective" actually means here

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes two modes of thinking: a fast, automatic "System 1" that produces an answer before you've consciously reasoned about anything, and a slower, effortful "System 2" that can check and override System 1 when it's wrong. The CRT doesn't measure how smart System 2 is — it measures whether you bother to consult it before answering.

Why response time matters

Below, your result includes how quickly you locked in each answer. Research on the CRT consistently finds that faster first responses correlate with the intuitive, incorrect answer, while correct answers tend to take a beat longer — the extra half-second is usually the moment System 2 catches something System 1 got wrong.

Limitations

Frequently asked questions

What is the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT)?

A short measure introduced by Shane Frederick in 2005. Each question has an answer that feels immediately, confidently correct, and a different answer that's actually correct once you check your first instinct. It's a quick proxy for how often you override a fluent gut response with deliberate reasoning.

Is this an IQ test?

No. The CRT doesn't measure knowledge or intelligence on its own — it measures whether you pause to verify a confident first answer. High-IQ people regularly score low if they trust their gut, and the reverse happens too.

Why does the bat-and-ball question fool almost everyone?

"10 cents" is the answer your brain produces with the least effort, from a rough split of $1.10. It feels right because it came quickly and fluently — not because anyone checked that the bat is really exactly $1.00 more than the ball.

Does a low score mean I'm not smart?

No. It means your first-instinct answers went unchecked on these particular items today. It's a snapshot of one sitting, not a fixed trait.

Can I get better at this?

Studies show simply being told to double-check your first answer raises CRT scores. The underlying habit — pausing before committing to a fluent-feeling answer — is trainable, even if a single test can't measure that training.

Is my email or data shared with anyone?

Your answers are scored entirely in your browser and never leave your device. The email used to unlock your results is only used to send you that result, per the site's legal notice.

How long does it take?

About two minutes for all seven questions. There's no countdown, but the test means the most when you go with your first instinct rather than deliberately stalling.