How the 12 Axes test is scored

The bank holds 288 statements: 12 axes, 8 groups per axis, 3 statements per group. Four groups argue for the first value of the axis and four for the second, and within each side the groups run from mild to extreme.

The statements come from the open-source 12axes project, published under the MIT licence. This site corrected ten typing and grammar errors and changed nothing else in the English text. The Portuguese and Spanish versions are this site's own translations.

The full version asks all 288. The standard version asks 5 per axis: three from one side and two from the other, with the side chosen at random for each axis, exactly as the original short quiz does. The quick version asks 3 per axis: one moderate statement from each side and one mild statement from a random side.

Within a group, one of the three statements is picked at random, and the order of the whole test is shuffled. Because the sides are uneven in the two shorter versions, agreeing with everything does not land exactly on 50. It lands a few points to one side, in a direction that differs per axis and per attempt.

Strongly agree is worth 2, agree 1, partially agree 0.5, neutral or unsure 0, partially disagree −0.5, disagree −1 and strongly disagree −2. If the statement argues for the second value of its axis, the sign is flipped before it is added.

For each axis the weights are added up, divided by the highest total possible (2 for every statement asked on that axis) and placed on a scale from 0 to 100: score = 50 + 50 × total ÷ maximum. The result is rounded to a whole number and read as the share of the first value. The share of the second value is 100 minus that.

An example from the standard version: on one axis you strongly agree with two first-side statements (+4), agree with a third (+1), disagree with one second-side statement (+1 after the flip) and are neutral on the last (0). Your total is 6 of a possible 10, so the score is 50 + 50 × 6 ÷ 10 = 80.

The original full quiz used 50 plus the raw total, which could only reach 2 to 98. This site divides by the true maximum so that all three lengths share one scale.

Each axis names seven bands: above 90, above 75, above 60, 40 to 60, 25 and up, 10 and up, and below 10. The band names are this site's own wording, loosely based on the original labels.

Each of the 38 ideologies has a position on four axes: economy, power, intervention and culture. The site measures the straight-line distance between those four numbers and yours, then reports closeness as 100 minus half the distance. Identical positions score 100, and positions at opposite corners score 0.

The positions come from the 12axes project. For the diplomatic value, the original code compares the trade axis. This site compares the intervention axis instead, because the stored values clearly run from internationalist to nationalist. The other eight axes do not enter the ideology match, which is why two people with the same ideology can have quite different shapes.

Countries and historical figures are compared on all twelve axes. The site measures the straight-line distance between your twelve scores and theirs, and reports closeness as 100 minus that distance as a share of the largest distance possible.

The ideology match keeps using four axes. Your closest ideology, country and figure are therefore three separate comparisons and need not agree with each other.

Every country and figure was placed on the twelve axes by this site's editors, in steps of a few points. Countries are judged by how they are governed today: constitutional structure, elections, civil liberties, ownership and regulation, trade policy, the place of religion in law, social legislation, immigration rules, defence posture and technology policy. Figures are judged by what they argued for and what they did.

These are estimates, not measurements. Reasonable people would move many of them by ten points or more, and one number cannot describe a government or a life. The list of countries is not complete. Figures' names, dates and short descriptions come from Wikidata, and only people who have died are included, so that no living politician is scored.

A match is a statement about distance on twelve numbers. It is not praise or blame, and it says nothing about what a person did.

Nobody has validated these scales. The choice of twelve axes is an editorial one, several statements assume the politics of the United States, and a short agree-or-disagree item cannot capture why you hold a view.

A score of 70 means you leaned that way on these statements. It does not mean 70 percent of people agree with you, and it is not advice on how to vote.