Guess the Crime Quiz
How the Scales are Structured
Who Usually Takes This Test?
See How You Compare
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.
Example Questions From the Test
- Robbery
- Perjury
- Embezzlement
- Forgery
- Fraud
- Extortion
- Bribery
- Embezzlement
- Theft or larceny
- Robbery
- Burglary
- Embezzlement
Guess the Crime Quiz - Description and methodology of the test
Readers who want to sharpen recognition of common criminal-law distinctions can use the Guess the Crime Quiz as a focused learning exercise. It is designed for people comparing familiar offense labels and testing whether they can connect a fact pattern with the legal concept it most directly describes. As a criminal law quiz, it offers a quick profile of conceptual knowledge rather than a judgment about any person or allegation.
What This Assessment Explores
Short scenarios ask readers to distinguish offenses by intent, force, entry, possession, completed conduct, and a person's later role. The audience is anyone building basic legal vocabulary.
The result appears on the Guess the Crime Knowledge scale (0-16). Foundations to Build (0-6) marks distinctions needing review; Developing Classifier (7-12) indicates recognition of many patterns with some confusion between related offenses; Strong Knowledge (13-16) indicates consistent use of the quiz's broad distinctions. As a crime knowledge test, it covers:
- Deception and documents show whether you can separate fraud, forgery, and perjury by the misleading act.
- Property and possession show whether you can distinguish theft, embezzlement, receiving stolen property, and unauthorized use by intent and control.
- Entry, inchoate conduct, force, and taking show whether you can recognize burglary, attempt, conspiracy, assault, battery, robbery, and arson from purpose, stage, threat, contact, or burning.
Methodology and Evidence Base
Each item presents a fact pattern with four answer choices and asks for the offense or role that most directly fits. The alternatives isolate features such as threat versus contact, agreement versus attempt, or entrustment versus possession.
As an offense identification quiz, it rewards attention to decisive legal details rather than dramatic storytelling. The score summarizes performance across the items; its interpretation is broad rather than a measure of legal expertise.
Methodologically, the content is conceptually consistent with offense distinctions presented by Dressler and Garvey (2022), while terminology and general categories are also compatible with the Model Penal Code and Dubber (2015). These sources provide a legal-concept framework, but the online questionnaire is not presented as an adaptation, validation study, or standardized administration of them.
Legal definitions and charges vary by jurisdiction, so simplified scenarios cannot capture every exception or local rule, and allegations do not establish guilt. The displayed bands are educational summaries rather than validated legal assessments or legal advice; prior knowledge and personal interpretation of the facts can affect performance.
- Dressler, Joshua, and Stephen P. Garvey. Dressler and Garvey's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials. 9th ed. West Academic Publishing, 2022.
- American Law Institute. Model Penal Code: Official Draft and Explanatory Notes: Complete Text of Model Penal Code as Adopted at the 1962 Annual Meeting of the American Law Institute at Washington, D.C., May 24, 1962. The Institute, 1985.
- Dubber, Markus D. An Introduction to the Model Penal Code. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2015. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190243043.001.0001.