This simple survey will tell you how left-handed you are and give you an overall score you can compare to the thousands of others who have taken the test.
You can see our analysis of the test results so far here.
So go ahead and tick the options for which hand you use for various things and see how you rate overall…
How left handed are you?
We all have our own view of whether we are left-handed or not and, ultimately, that is the the test - if you consider yourself to be left-handed then you are! That said, most people are mixed in their handedness and it is rare for people to do everything with just one hand or side of their body. Our test below will show which side you use for various tasks and how consistent you are in the use of your hands. It will also give you give you an overall score out of 100 for your level of left-handedness and you can see how you compare to other people. To get the overall score, we have weighted the various factors so, for example, writing left-handed gets a far higher weighting in the overall score than which way you hold a bat two-handed (see this page for more information on how we did this).
Being a lefty I started having problems since kindergarten. The teacher didn’t like me because I was causing problems in class. I used to knock over my classmate’s glass of milk with my left elbow when lifting my cup. The right-handed classmate used place the glass on his right side which was my left side. The boy complained several times to the teacher that I was purposely spilling his milk. The teacher yelled at me and punish me. I started vomiting every morning because I did not want to go to school. My mom had a talk with the teacher who claimed to have a lot of “experience” with children. The teacher told my mom that I couldn’t even use the scissors to cut paper. My mom told her that if it ever occurred to her that it was because I was left-handed. My mom complained to the principal, and I was changed to a different class.
During my school years I had so many issues with not being able to have nice handwriting or draw well. The desks at my schools were made for a right-handed person. Some teachers told me that I was not going to succeed in life. Imagine that! They were so wrong. I have a university degree in Information Technology, and I speak three languages fluently.
I got 54%. So Left but mixed-handed. I have always considered myself to be elft handed, although having doubt by not using my left hand for everything. The only things I use my left hand for are writing, eating with a spoon and any other tasks which aren’t common in day-to-day life. Everything else that is common like brushing my teeth, batting a ball, throwing a ball and ironing and cutting with scissors, I use my right hand. So I am almost completely evenly mixed handed. But I think that extra 4% over on the left hand side definitely allows me to consider myself ‘left handed’. Or if not, mixed handed.
As a left handed Jew it is very normal to use a book in Hebrew that opens from back to front. It’s the right handers who think it is abnormal!.
Karen
Agreed! I’m left-handed and Jewish, also. Additionally, it’s easier to write Hebrew than English since right-to-left eliminates the problem of being unable to see what is being written.
Definitely!
Writing hebrew is amazing for me as a lefthander, no smearing over the freshly written words!
It’s funny I was just looking at the left handed notebook/paper and thought to myself “hmm, maybe I need to learn how to write in hebrew”
It turns out I am 63% left handed. I was told at school you are either left or right handed and I always said I am a bit of both. Thanks for giving me the proof! 🙂
I got 67%left. I was hit on the back of my hand in school with a ruler and forced to use my right, until 3rd grade. Even then things were more difficult.
I was always the only left handed kid in my class and I had an advantage. I could keep doing my morning work while doing the pledge or anything like that. Disadvantage: I naturally put my left hand on my heart for the pledge kindergarten through 3rd grade and kids stared at me and laughed and called me stupid just because I used the “wrong” hand.
I got 64% lefty. I’m 40. My parents tried to get me to eat with my right hand, but I kept putting the spoon in the other hand, so they let me be. I didn’t get a whole bunch of anti-leftism in school, although my effort to circumvent the spiral notebook thing by flipping the notebook over so the spiral was on the right was thwarted because I was writing on the ‘wrong side of the paper’. They did have left-handed scissors, but I couldn’t use them, it was too awkward. They felt more natural in my right hand.
One thing that is definitely odd is that I don’t have the left-handed writer’s ‘curl’. I know several lefties who curl their hand so that the eraser end of their pencil is facing the right. It looks painful and awkward, and the writing is usually not all that neat. My writing is an exact mirror image of the way a righty writes, with the eraser facing left.
At the age of 14, when I decided I wanted to learn the guitar, my dad offered to flip the strings for me. Having always played air guitar right-handed, it seemed that was the natural way for me to play, so I learned right-handed. Same with drums. I can’t play a lefty kit. I guess I do enough things right-handed that it isn’t until someone sees me write that they notice I’m a lefty.
And another cool bonus to this International Left Hander’s Day thing? It’s on my birthday! 🙂
I grew up using both hands for most things and I can still paly pool or play table tennis both hands but in year 4 they made me stick to my right hand to write.
I got used to using my right hand to do things and the left got left behind. However I am Left legged and left eye dominant.
my test said 25% left sided but I feel it is more.
My father made me stop using my left hand to eat and the nun in the second grade stopped me from writing with my left hand. I could not tie my own shoes until the age of eight. My mother kept showing me but I could not get it.
This was back in the late 1950’s so I just thought I was using the wrong hand for everything. When I got older I learned to comb my hair with my right hand, as well as brush my teeth. If no one had stopped me while I was young, I would be completely left handed. To this day I can’t cut meat and hard squash because its too difficult and I could never master it using a knife in my right hand. My sister complains that I can’t screw bottle tops on cricket or leave them too loose – and its true. Oh to have been born in the 70’s would have been a blessing because everyone would have let me use my left hand.
Sincerely,
E.L.
My father is left handed and born in the early 50s. His 2nd or 3rd grade teacher tried to do this to him as well. My PapPa went down to that school and gave that school teacher a frightful lecture about leaving his boy alone! If he was born a leftie he would stay that way. My dad was lucky. *side note: I was born in the 70s and I am left handed, and I clearly remember a teacher doing the same thing with me in grade school. My parents made the same march up to the school to lecture that teacher just as my Papa did.
OH! and btw- my mother’s mother, mother, father, me, younger brother, and my daughter are ALL lefties. We’re proud of it. 🙂
I was born in the 70s — to a lefty father — and I was still scolded for using my left hand! My mom’s mother was a devout Catholic, and very controlling — she would not let me use my left hand and would slap it if I reached for things with it. Eventually my father caught on and that was stopped – but not before I became pretty ambidexterous! My father always used whichever hand was easier (using a screwdriver in tight places, or something being closer to one side or the other, etc.). So I have that advantage too. Now my family consists mainly of lefties! Funny!
I found when a right person is teaching you something to do physically make them stand facing you, then mirror their movements. That’s the only way I could learn anything that involved intricate movements.
Same. I had a gym teacher in elementary school who would not let me play any games unless I threw with my left hand or kicked with my left foot.
I could never switch left-handed writing to right-handed – although many a teacher tried, so now I am left, but mixed handed.
you are natural born left-handed it is easy for you if you practise it regularly on left hand
Mostly left (61%).The biggest trouble I’ve had is with power tools. Are there any on the market yet? Oh, and are there any lefty cashiers who switched the cash drawer over?
I don’t switch cash in a drawer, because it’ll confuse the others. I prefer working from high to low.
I’ve also adapted too using some power tools in my left.
when I was a cashier I did the drawer the usual way – Since it’s more natural for me to start lining things up left to right anyway… there were a few cashiers that did it the other way, but even to me that looked strange…
I remember in first grade, the teacher turned away from us and held up her right hand and said “This is the hand you pick up the pencil with. Anyone picking it up with the other hand will not go out to recess!” I already knew how to write because of my sister (a rightie) had taught me to write over the summer. She had no hand preference, and it seemed correct to me to pick it up in the left hand. My Mother – a leftie, got mad and switched teachers on me. But alas – it was 1958 and it was the way it was. They tried to make us righties. I became a righty because being different was a cancer in those days. Sad.
My teacher said she would tie my left hand behind my back or cane me if i used my left hand my mother took me out of there but i devleooed a stammer
I can’t believe she did that. My brother is also left handed and his kindergarten teacher made him switch hands by force.
I fully understand using your left ear for listening to phone calls but if you have a job where listening and writing is very important you quickly learn to switch the phone to your right ear. I spent almost 30 years as a contract computer programmer and there is no room for error because you didn’t hear/write down the instructions correctly.
Totally agree–I have to use my right hand/right ear so my left hand is free to take notes. Of course, if I had a headset on, I could type with both hands… But sometimes even that is difficult because the phone cord or headset cable might cross over in front. And don’t get me started on those credit card machines that have the pen on the “wrong” side! 😉
Just for that reason, I got a headset, so that I wouldn’t have to tuck the phone receiver under my chin, etc. That’s fine when I’m at my desk.
I generally grab the phone with my right hand, and put it to my right ear — because i Have to write everything down, and I need my left hand free. But when I go running, with my bluetooth headset, I have the control side on my left ear, and it’s more natural for me to reach up to my leftear with my left hand to change the volume or answer a call — I guess one thing Lefties tend to do – learn to adapt and overcome. :o)
hey, i have an office job where phone/writing has to be done at the same time so what i do is I hold the phone with my right hand but to my left ear so i still have my left hand free to write.. you should try this… LEFTIES MUST STICK TOGETHER:)
There are two kinds of people in the world,
Left handed people and people that wished they were left handed.