The TCKness Test
Hahaha! Made you look!
No, there’s really no scientific test, of course, but a colleague of mine put together this “test” for his high school students (in an International School in China) to raise awareness of what it means to be a TCK/Global Nomad & their own backgrounds. I thought it was a fun idea & edited a bit, however if you all would like to add your ten cents I’d be interested in feedback. Any questions you’d add?! How do you score?! I’m over 60 
Are your parents of the same nationality? Score 1 for No and 0 for Yes
Do you have other immediate family members with different nationalities?
Score 0 for No and 1 for Yes
Were you born in your passport country(ies)? Score 0 for Yes, 1 for No
How many different towns/cities have you lived in? ½ point each
How many different countries have you lived in? 1 points each
How many different continents have you lived in? 2 points each
How many different languages can you speak fluently (very well) 2 point each
How many different languages can you speak a little of? ½ point each
How many different alphabets can you read? 1 point each
How many years have you spent outside of your passport country(ies)?
How many passports do you have? 1 point for each passport, but the first
If you have never lived in your passport country give yourself a bonus of 2 points
If your passport country is not the same as your parents’, give yourself 2 points
What is the longest you have lived in one house/apartment?
>10 years 0 points
5- 9 years ½ point
3-4 years 1 point
2 years 2 points
< 2 years 3 points
TOTAL
…I hope the format works!!! Otherwise this might look like a big mess!!
Stefanie Bradley
I'm a Swiss-American dual citizen who grew up & currently lives in Asia :)Related Posts
23 Comments to “The TCKness Test”
February 27th, 2008 at 6:28 am
This is fun! I scored 491/2. What is the cut off? ha ha.
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February 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
You might add cultural factors like eating diffrent types of food at home.
My parents were both Japanese but we ate different kinds of food since I was little - and I didn’t realize that in many families - people weren’t doing this!
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February 27th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Hahaha
I think I got 36. -.- Makes me feel less of a TCK, haha, but it’s okelah. I just haven’t moved as much as other people.
You might want to add how many points per year-outside-passport-country. I counted those, so if it doesn’t count I’m down quite a lot, haha.
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February 27th, 2008 at 7:08 am
The other thing is that question about being born in your passport country…
I was born in Japan but I left when I was 2 years old. Some TCKs leave when they’re under 12 months and I don’t think there’s any difference with being born outside your passport country if you’re this young!
There were some other things like languages which I don’t think correlate to TCKness at all because I know a lot of non-TCKs who speak more languages than me. They’re just better at learning new languages!
Oh well - the test is just for fun and it’s not serious so don’t listen to my blather! lol
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February 27th, 2008 at 7:16 am
lol i lost track of what i got. I’ll Do this again when i’m more awake.. Anyways, i think what ayako suggested would be good, about the food..
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February 27th, 2008 at 8:09 am
only 36-_- I knew I need more experience.
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February 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am
i’m 42. what deos that mean? is higher better? i don’t get it.
yeah, certain aspects are hard to judge. like language. i have found that tcks are usually split down the midle of those that speak 100 languages and those who only speak english (and not any of thisr ‘mother tongues’ and/r the languages of the countries they lived in). i feel like both are heavy tck traits.
also, how many towns i lived in, spent 9 months travelling to 25 different states. what does that mean?
its a fun test, and i enjoyed doing it and seeing others results. but i am a little scared aboutt he whole ‘quantifying’ the tck exprience. i have seen folks who only lived outside their passport countries a few short years, but have typical tck issues. and then on the flip side, those who lived abroad for longer but somehow manage to comfortably repatriate. sometimes quantifying feels like we are trying to exclude even other tcks, and/or see who is ‘more’ tck than who. something i think is impossible. (stef, i know this is not what you are trying to do, you just posted a fun little test! but i just had to put that in there.)
but a fun test none the less….
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February 27th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hmmm… 12.5. Is this thing graded on a curve?
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February 27th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Well what if you lived in countries at different points, but then the country split up… Also how long does one have to have lived in a city to get points, since I’ve lived in several cities for just a short time. Or moved to neighbor cities in the same area. Or what about living in the same country, but at different non-subsequent times… Hehe…i tend to complicate everything…
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February 27th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I scored 39.
It’s a fun test, although I don’t think a higher or lower score makes you more or less of a TCK. It would be great for raising awareness though, or maybe even for an ice-breaker at a TCK get-together?
The question about being born outside of your passport country didn’t make a lot of sense to me as many countries give you a passport for being born there. That’s how I got to be a double-citizen. However I did count it as being born outside of my passport country as that is not the passport that I use.
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February 28th, 2008 at 3:23 am
I’m glad people are trying the “test”. Of COURSE it doesn’t make you any less TCK if you score less & it’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s simply a look at trends, I suppose, & if you follow TCK trends or not. I like the idea of using it as a TCK gathering ice-breaker
I added the question about the country you’re being born in being different than your passport country because a lot of people follow up the “Where are you from?” question with “OK, so where were you born?” as if this will explain everything & for many of us it doesn’t explain much or complicates it even further!! However, if you get a passport simply from being born somewhere I can see that it isn’t as simple! (Is it EVER?!)
As for languages, they are something TCKs TEND to have more exposure to than non-TCKs. I absolutely love them, but alas, I show no talent for learning them
As a Swiss I’m an embarrassment since I only speak English & German (NOT Swiss-German!). I only consider myself “fluent” in English as in German I still make mistakes & have to look words up & can’t write beyond a Kindergarten level!
Perhaps another question is how many languages have you studied… I only speak 2, but have studied 10 & suck at them all!
Lauren, did you REALLY score 491/2?!?! (I’m pretty gullible, but that does seem impossible)… You must have SOME story!!!
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February 28th, 2008 at 4:10 am
I got 45.
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March 3rd, 2008 at 10:05 am
OkeLAH, haha, thats so bhutanese
you can add another point
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March 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Dear Stef,
I think Lauren meant 49 and 1/2.
But I might be mistaken.
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March 3rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I got 41 and half…higher than I thought.
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December 14th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I can’t believe I missed this thread?! I’m gonna take that test… lol
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December 15th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I didn’t see this before either. I got a 40.
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December 15th, 2008 at 2:29 am
I tried it earlier. I think I got a 50.5…but that doesn’t mean anything except I’m probably slightly older (emphasis on SLIGHTLY, ehm, lest you think i’m really old) than everyone else who tried it. Most of my points came from: How many years have you spent outside of your passport country(ies)? I think it works only if you’re administering it to people who are all in the same age group (like in a classroom, the place where it was originally designed for). Otherwise, gotta take that question out.
e.g. Someone who left Italy when he was 2 and lived in the Italian part of Switzerland, never became a naturalized citizen, and is now 75 yrs old would score at least 73 just based on that question alone. But that doesn’t mean anything in terms of TCKness.
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December 15th, 2008 at 4:01 am
That’s where a lot of my points came from. I’m 21, and I lived outside my passport country for 17 years lol.
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December 15th, 2008 at 4:40 am
I got 42 - what I love about that is that it makes me totally average in this community… not something I experience too often.
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December 15th, 2008 at 4:47 am
seeeee. If you’re 21 and you scored 40. Then that would make stef, who scored 60, about…40 yrs old or there abouts. And she is. well, she’s a few years younger than that according to her profile site. but yeah, close enough. so that question doesn’t work. all it does is advertise our age to everyone! aaaaaanyway.
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December 17th, 2008 at 12:18 am
25 give or take, but I Am a TCK_Lite :-p
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Today at 3:37 pm (5 hours ago)
I scored 25.
I’m 28 years old.
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