Word Recognition Test

What it measures

This check looks at how well you can recognise short, common spoken words in quiet, listening to your device's own computer voice. It is a casual screen for speech understanding — not a measure of how loud sounds need to be (that is a hearing-threshold test) and not a clinical word-recognition score.

How it works

Your device's built-in text-to-speech voice speaks one familiar one-syllable word at a time. After each word you choose, from four options, which word you think you heard. This closed-set, four-choice format scores robustly by ear alone and avoids spelling or typing errors. You do this across twelve words. Because there are four choices each time, pure guessing scores about 25%, so consistently picking the right word shows you are genuinely making out the speech rather than guessing. In an audiology clinic, word recognition is measured very differently: a professionally recorded, standardised list of words (such as the NU-6 or CID W-22 lists) is presented at a calibrated, comfortable loudness, and the percentage repeated correctly becomes your word-recognition score.

Tips for an accurate result

• 1Don't lip-read or guess from context — There is no speaker to watch and no sentence for context — each word stands alone. That makes the check a cleaner snapshot of how you hear individual words.
• 2Try each ear if you wear headphones — If you suspect one ear is weaker, you can repeat the check listening mainly through one side. Big, consistent differences between ears are worth mentioning to an audiologist.
• 3A low score has many everyday causes — Tiredness, a cold, ear wax, a noisy room, or simply an unclear synthetic voice can all lower your score. One result is never a diagnosis — retest in good conditions before drawing conclusions.