Personality test

Each of the five traits runs between two ends, and most people are somewhere in between. Being quiet is not worse than being outgoing, and being easy-going is not worse than being organised. The result describes how you see yourself today, in your own answers, and the sentences say it in everyday words: outgoing or quiet, warm or direct, organised or easy-going, calm or sensitive, imaginative or practical.

The ruler under each sentence runs from the lowest sum your ten answers could give to the highest. We cut it into five equal parts, and the sentence names the part your sum falls in. That is a place on the ruler, not a rank among other people.

Beside your own place, four of the five traits are set roughly beside other people. A study published in 2026 printed the average answer for each trait of 18,062 volunteers who took these same 50 statements on a free personality website^[2]. Your average answer on a trait, from 1 to 5, is placed beside theirs in one of five levels, never as a rank. They chose to take a test online, mostly in Western countries, so they are not everyone. The study reported the opposite of emotional stability (worry and mood swings), so that trait is not compared.

The test is Goldberg's set of fifty Big-Five factor markers, ten statements for each of five factors, in the order and the words of the International Personality Item Pool^[1]. The collection is in the public domain, so anyone may use its statements for any purpose. A study in Scotland found that the five factors hold together well and that they agree with other personality questionnaires. We show the statements in the authors' own English words, in their order, with their five answers.

• Each trait is the sum of its ten statements. Statements that point the other way are counted backwards, so a high sum always means more of the trait.
• You may leave out a few statements where the result still stands. A trait that loses more than a fifth of its ten statements has too few answers to be scored, and the result says so.
• Your answers are saved in this browser after each statement, and kept for a month if you stop. Once your result is saved, the unfinished sheet is deleted.
• If the answers came quicker than the statements can be read, or were the same all the way through, the result is shown but kept out of every comparison, and it says so in plain words.

Below are the statements, how they are scored, the licence and the paper, exactly as we use them.

Personality is fairly steady over the years, but answers to a questionnaire move a little from day to day. A tiring week, a recent argument or a good holiday can tip a few answers by a point. With ten statements to a trait, that moves the sum only a little, so if you take the test again in a month, expect most traits to land in the same place or one fifth away. A change of two fifths or more is worth asking yourself about: did something in your life change, or did you read the statements differently?

• Outgoing or quiet (extraversion): how much you look for company, talk and action.
• Warm or direct (agreeableness): how much you put getting along first.
• Organised or easy-going (conscientiousness): how much you plan, keep order and finish things.
• Calm or sensitive (emotional stability): how strongly worries and moods reach you.
• Imaginative or practical (intellect or imagination): how much you enjoy ideas, words and pictures of what could be.

Researchers who study personality keep finding these five broad traits in many languages and countries. They are the same five as in the longer Big Five test, which looks at each of them from six sides. The names differ a little between research groups, and the next section says why.

The fifth trait has two names in the research. Goldberg's markers call it intellect or imagination and word it with ideas, words and quick understanding; the questionnaires built on the NEO tradition call it openness to experience and add art, adventure and feelings. The two overlap a great deal but are not the same list of statements. That is why the fifth trait here is worded as imaginative or practical, and why your score on it may differ a little from your openness on another test.

In the same way, the fourth trait is worded as calm or sensitive here, with a high score meaning calm. Some questionnaires turn it round and measure sensitivity to stress, which they call neuroticism. It is the same dimension seen from the other end.

The quick personality test has 10 statements and gives a first sketch in two minutes. This test has 50 and describes the five traits more steadily. The longest, the Big Five test, has 120 statements and splits each trait into six facets. If you are not sure, take the one that fits the time you have: all of them describe the same five traits, and the longer the test, the less a single odd answer moves the result.