Brain Speed Test

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on July 02, 2012

There are lots of ways to measure the speed of your personal computer, but how about that most personal computer of all, the human brain? Brain Speed Test from Brain Computers is an ultrasimple, ultracompact program that tests your mental reaction time and makes it possible to compare your results with others'. It doesn't test your intelligence or mental ability, just your brain speed. Anyone who has mastered second-grade math and basic typing can take the Brain Speed Test, and none of the tests uses numerals larger than 9. Because you must type in your answers, Brain Speed Test also tests your typing speed and skill. It benefits from repetition, too; since it doesn't test knowledge but reaction time, practice makes perfect -- or, at least, it yields more accurate results.

Brain Speed Test is one of the most compact programs you'll find for Windows; it's even smaller than the icon included in the download. It's portable freeware, so Brain Speed Test launches as soon as you click its executable file. This program will be especially useful to those old enough to remember the dear old (NOT) days of DOS since aging brains can benefit from tune-ups such as Brain Speed Test offers. Its command line interface may put off some users with little or no computing experience outside of a GUI, but it's actually as simple as can be to run. We started by entering name, sex, and age and pressed 1 to start the Addition Test. Brain Speed Test throws a series of simple math problems at you, starting with basic addition. None of the sums are greater than 9, and equations frequently repeat themselves; the idea is to test how quickly you can solve or recall the answers and type them in.

We lost some time at the start by hitting Enter -- you only need to type in the answer to enter it -- but Brain Speed Test is totally easy to master. Achieving a high score is a different matter! But your score will improve with practice, and you'll get a more accurate measure of your actual brain speed.