Words appear one at a time. Decide whether you have already seen each word in this test or whether it is new. Every right answer scores a point and every mistake costs one of your three lives. How many words can you keep track of?
Last updated:
Lives♥ ♥ ♥
Score0
Best–
Aa
Have you seen this word before?
Words appear one at a time. If you have seen a word earlier in this test, press Seen. If it is new, press New. You have three lives.
Keyboard: S = Seen, N = New
Word 1
Your score
0words
Every answercorrect wrong seen word
Your scores and percentile
Best–
Average (last 10)–
Last score percentile–
Tests taken0
Score distribution (all your tests)Recent tests
Percentile = share of your saved tests that this score beats (ties count half). History stays in this browser only.
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How to use the Verbal Memory Test
Choose a word pool and lives (common words and 3 lives is the standard test), then press Start test.
Read the word that appears in the middle of the box.
Press Seen (or S) if it already appeared earlier in this test, or New (or N) if it has not.
Keep going: each correct answer adds a point, each wrong answer removes a life.
Review your result: accuracy, the words you missed, and how this score ranks against your earlier tests.
What the verbal memory test measures
This is a continuous recognition task. Instead of recalling a list at the end, you judge every word the moment it appears: new or already seen? Psychologists use tasks like this to study recognition memory, the ability to tell familiar items from unfamiliar ones. Because the set of words you have seen keeps growing, the test probes how much verbal information you can keep distinct, and how resistant you are to interference from similar words.
Two kinds of error can end your run, and the result screen counts them separately:
The word was…
You answered Seen
You answered New
Seen before
Hit (correct)
Miss (wrong)
New
False alarm (wrong)
Correct rejection (correct)
Many false alarms suggest you answer Seen whenever a word feels vaguely familiar. Many misses suggest you are too cautious or that early words have faded. The sensitivity score d′ = z(hit rate) − z(false alarm rate) combines both: it rises only when you get better at telling the two kinds of word apart.
Tips for a higher score
Make each new word vivid. Picture the object or action for a split second. Images are easier to recognise later than bare letters.
Link words into a story. Connecting a new word to one you have already seen ("the penguin rode the tractor") creates extra memory cues.
Keep a steady pace. There is no time limit, but long pauses do not help much. Answer when you are reasonably sure.
Watch out for look-alikes. Words that share a theme (river, stream, lake) cause the most false alarms.
Test when alert. Sleep, fatigue and distraction affect memory scores much more than most people expect.
This is a game and a self-check, not a clinical or diagnostic memory assessment. If you are worried about your memory, talk to a doctor.
Frequently asked questions
How does the verbal memory test work?
It is a continuous recognition test. Each word on screen is either new or a repeat of a word shown earlier in the same test. You answer Seen or New. The list of words you must remember keeps growing, so the test gets harder the longer you play. It ends when you run out of lives.
How is the score calculated?
Your score is the number of correct answers before your lives run out. With the standard three lives, the test ends on your third mistake. A mistake is either calling a new word seen (a false alarm) or calling a repeated word new (a miss).
What is a good verbal memory score?
There is no official norm for this format, so the tool compares you with yourself: the percentile shows what share of your own saved tests the score beats. Scores often climb noticeably over the first few attempts as you find a strategy, so compare results after some practice.
What is d-prime (d′)?
d′ is a measure from signal detection theory: d′ = z(hit rate) − z(false alarm rate), where z is the inverse of the standard normal distribution. It separates how well you tell seen and new words apart from your bias towards answering one way. 0 means guessing; higher values mean better discrimination. A small correction (adding 0.5 to counts) avoids infinite values when a rate is 0% or 100%.
How often do seen words come back?
Once at least three words have been shown, each new word has roughly a 30% chance of being a repeat, rising slowly to at most 50% as your list grows. Any earlier word can return, not only recent ones, and the same word is never shown twice in a row.
Which word pool should I use?
Common words uses a built-in list of over 500 everyday nouns, verbs and adjectives, which is closest to the classic test. Large dictionary draws from about 100,000 English words; unusual words can be easier to recognise but harder to read quickly, so scores from the two pools are not directly comparable.
Is my data saved?
Your settings and up to 200 past scores are kept in your browser's local storage on this device. Nothing is uploaded and you can clear the history at any time.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
Yes! Every tool on our site undergoes automated Q/A testing in real browser environments to ensure high precision, correct output, and zero errors. If you happen to spot a bug or have a suggestion, please contact us at [email protected] and our team will review it right away.