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The Seinfeld Aptitude Test Is a 1994 Trivia Book Named for the SAT
The name sounds like a real exam, and that is the gag. The full title is SAT: The Seinfeld Aptitude Test, so the initials match the SAT that American high school students sit to get into college. Inside, there is no math section and no reading passage. There are 643 questions about a sitcom.
So when people look up the name today, they usually mean one of three things. They saw the book on a shelf or a resale site. They read about the court case it lost, which still turns up in law school reading on copyright. Or they half remember the episode where George has to take an IQ test and talks Elaine into taking it for him. This page covers all three, then gives you a short Seinfeld test of your own.
For all its exam styling, the book never asks you to reason, only to remember. Every answer is something you either saw on screen or missed. Keep that in mind, because it is the difference between this book and the aptitude tests employers and schools give, which we come back to at the end.
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See what fits you →Where the Seinfeld Aptitude Test Name Comes From
The book came out in 1994, when Seinfeld was near the height of its popularity. A fan named Beth Golub wrote it, and Carol Publishing Group put it out. It runs 132 pages. The questions draw on 84 of the 86 episodes that had aired by then, and they cover everything from small plot points to exact lines of dialogue.
The format copies a school test on purpose. Some questions are multiple choice. Some ask you to match a quote to the character who said it. Some want a short written answer. At the end, the book grades you the way a test prep guide would and tells you how big a fan you are. That grading was the fun of owning it, and the questions behind it were the part that got it into trouble.
The Seinfeld Aptitude Test Book at a Glance
It is a published book, sold in stores, not an internet rumor. It reached readers before a court stopped it, which is why copies still change hands among collectors.
- Full title
- SAT: The Seinfeld Aptitude Test
- Author
- Beth Golub
- Publisher
- Carol Publishing Group
- Published
- 1994
- Length
- 132 pages, 643 questions
- Source material
- 84 of the 86 Seinfeld episodes aired at the time
Beth Golub's 643 Questions and Five Difficulty Levels
Beth Golub is the author on the cover. She sorted her 643 questions into five levels, and the level names are Seinfeld jokes in their own right: Wuss Questions; This, That, and the Other Questions; Tough Monkey Questions; Atomic Wedgie Questions; and Master of Your Domain Questions. Of the 643, 211 are multiple choice and 93 are matching. The rest ask for a short answer.
The appeals court opinion quotes a few of them, so we know their flavor. One asks what candy Kramer snacks on while he watches an operation from the balcony above an operating room. (Junior Mints.) Another gives a line about refusing nonrefundable deals, ending with "I'm not committing to an airline," and asks who said it. (Jerry.) A third asks what George pretends to be to impress a woman, with marine biologist among the choices.
It Was Never Licensed by NBC or Castle Rock
This was a fan's book, with no studio behind it. The back cover said so in plain words: "This book has not been approved or licensed by any entity involved in creating or producing Seinfeld." Castle Rock Entertainment owned the copyright in the show, and NBC aired it. Neither had a hand in the book.
A line like that is common on unofficial fan books. It tells you nobody at the studio signed off. What it can't do is give the publisher permission to use the show's material. A disclaimer says the studio did not approve the book; it does not give anyone the right to copy the show. That gap is where the lawsuit came in.
The Seinfeld Aptitude Test Lawsuit: Castle Rock v. Carol Publishing
Castle Rock sued Carol Publishing Group and the author for copyright infringement. The case is known as Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group Inc., and it went through two courts.
In 1997, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, then a federal trial judge in New York and now a Supreme Court justice, ruled for Castle Rock. She awarded $403,000 in damages and ordered that the book not be published again. Carol Publishing appealed. On July 10, 1998, the federal appeals court for the Second Circuit agreed with her. Judge John M. Walker Jr. wrote the full appeals opinion, which is short and readable if you want the source.
Copyright protects a show's scripts and stories. Can someone write a book of questions about those stories, use the show's own lines, and sell it without asking? The publisher said yes, on two grounds. First, trivia is just facts, and facts can't be owned. Second, the law allows some uses of a work without permission. The courts turned down both.
The facts argument failed for a simple reason. These were not facts about the world, like the year a war ended. They were made-up events from a made-up show. Asking which candy Kramer ate is asking about something the writers invented. The court treated questions about invented events as copying the show itself. Six hundred and forty-three of them, drawn from 84 episodes, added up to a lot of copying.
Why the Court Said the Trivia Book Wasn't Fair Use
Fair use is the part of US copyright law that lets you use someone's work without asking in some cases, such as a review, a news report, a parody, or teaching. Courts weigh four factors set out in the copyright statute. Every one of them went against the book.
- Why the book was made. The court said its purpose was "to repackage Seinfeld to entertain Seinfeld viewers." It did not criticize the show or make fun of it. Any new purpose it added was, in the court's words, "slight to non-existent."
- What kind of work was copied. A made-up comedy is creative work, and creative work gets more protection than something like a phone book.
- How much was taken. 643 questions from 84 episodes, 41 of them quoting dialogue, built on the show's invented events, is a big share of the show.
- The effect on the market. The court accepted that Seinfeld's audience grew after the book came out, and that Castle Rock had shown "little if any interest" in trivia books. It ruled for Castle Rock anyway, because the choice to make trivia books and other spin-offs belongs to the copyright owner, whether or not the owner uses it.
The fourth factor surprises most people. The book may have helped the show, and it still lost. A spin-off that helps the original can still be infringement, because the owner gets to decide who makes it.
What the Case Means for Fan Books Today
The case did not ban trivia about TV. Fans still write reviews, recaps, essays, and parodies, and those have room under fair use. What the case drew a line around is narrower: a product built almost entirely from one show's invented details, sold to that show's fans, with no commentary of its own. The US Copyright Office keeps the case in its fair use case index, next to the better-known disputes over songs, photos, and books.
A note before you write that fan book: this page explains a court case, and it is not legal advice. The case is one ruling about one book. If you plan to sell something built on someone else's show, talk to a copyright lawyer first.
The Seinfeld IQ Test Episode: George's Exam in "The Cafe"
The book's title is a pun on the SAT. But many fans link the book to an episode where a test is the whole plot, and it is easy to see why. The episode's official title is "The Cafe." It aired on NBC on November 6, 1991, as the seventh episode of season three, written by Tom Leopold and directed by Tom Cherones. Most fans just call it the Seinfeld IQ test episode.
There is no sign the book was named after it. Still, it is the show's best-known test, and it carries the same joke the book does: a show about four people who never take anything seriously, handed a serious exam.
What Happens in the IQ Test Episode
George's girlfriend, Monica, asks him to take an IQ test for her master's research. George panics. He has never gotten over his SAT scores. Elaine says her IQ is 145, so the plan is that she will take the test for him. Jerry and Elaine even bring up George's old school trick of passing test papers through a classroom window.
Elaine carries the test to the Dream Cafe, a struggling restaurant run by Babu Bhatt across the street from Jerry's building, hoping for some quiet. She gets none. Kramer hovers, takes a fall over Babu's scalding hot towels, and Babu sings. Then a spill ruins the papers. The score comes back 85, and both of them are humiliated. Elaine retakes it in Jerry's apartment and scores 151, but Monica catches George without the test, so the better score never helps him.
The B plot sets up a character fans still quote. Jerry tells Babu to drop his mixed menu and serve only Pakistani food. Babu takes the advice, the restaurant stays empty, and it closes. Babu blames Jerry, and he will be back.
Under the jokes, the episode makes a point any test maker would agree with. Elaine scored 85 in a noisy cafe and 151 in Jerry's apartment, on the same test. Where you sit a test, and what is going on around you, shows up in the score.
Take a Mini Seinfeld Aptitude Test
The original book has been out of print since the court order, and its questions belong to it. So here are ten new questions we wrote ourselves, running from easy to hard graded like the book's five levels. No looking things up. Count your right answers and check them below.
Ten Questions, Easy to Hard
- What is Jerry's apartment number?
- What is Kramer's first name?
- What is the name of the coffee shop where the four of them meet?
- Which neighbor, a mail carrier, does Jerry greet with a cold "Hello"?
- In "The Cafe," what IQ score does Elaine get when she retakes George's test?
- What is the name of Babu Bhatt's restaurant in that episode?
- What holiday does George's father invent instead of Christmas?
- What three words does the soup stand owner bark at customers who break his rules?
- Which catalog company does Elaine end up working for?
- What is the name of the made-up company George claims to be interviewing with?
Answers and Your Score
- 5A.
- Cosmo.
- Monk's Cafe.
- Newman.
- 151. Her first try, the one ruined in the cafe, came back 85.
- The Dream Cafe.
- Festivus, "for the rest of us."
- "No soup for you!"
- J. Peterman.
- Vandelay Industries, the importer and exporter.
Now score yourself the way the book would have. Zero to three right puts you at Wuss level. Four to six is Tough Monkey. Seven to nine is Atomic Wedgie. All ten, and you are master of your domain.
Whatever you got, notice what the score is made of. You needed no math and no logic, just hours on the couch. A perfect score on this test proves you have watched a lot of Seinfeld, and nothing more. That is fine. It is a game, and a good one. The online career quizzes you see on sites like BuzzFeed work the same way: fun to take, light on what they can tell you, as our look at BuzzFeed career aptitude tests lays out.
A Real Aptitude Test vs. a Seinfeld Trivia Test: What Each One Checks
The book borrowed the look of an exam, but it checks a different thing from the tests it was poking fun at. A trivia test checks what you have stored: plot points, lines, names. An aptitude test checks how you handle problems you have never seen, usually against a clock. You can get better at Seinfeld trivia by rewatching the show. Rewatching anything won't do much for your score on a test made of fresh problems.
Career Aptitude Tests Time Your Reasoning on New Problems
Employers, schools, and the armed forces use aptitude tests to see how you think on your feet. The sections tend to look alike. There are number questions, like reading a chart or working out a percentage. There are word questions, like what a short passage implies. There are pattern questions, like which shape comes next. For some jobs there is mechanical reasoning too. The military's version, the ASVAB, is a good example, and our guide to the military aptitude test and its scores walks through each part.
A good score on one of these is useful. It tells an employer, and you, that you can handle the kind of thinking a job will ask for. Elaine scored 151 on George's test, and the number says nothing about the fact that she went on to write catalog copy for J. Peterman while George bluffed his way into a job with the Yankees. Two people with the same score can want very different days at work. Our breakdown of free aptitude tests and your career goes deeper on where these scores help and where they don't.
| Test | What it checks | How you get ready | What a high score tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seinfeld trivia test | Memory of the show's plots, lines, and characters | Rewatch the show | You know Seinfeld well |
| Career aptitude test | Reasoning with numbers, words, and patterns, often timed | Practice the question types | You can handle the thinking a job asks for |
| Career self-discovery assessment | Your habits at work: decisions, people, and time | Nothing to study; answer honestly | Which directions suit you and what to try next |
Most adults who go looking for an aptitude test at some point in their working life are not after a score. They want to know which jobs would suit them, or whether their next move should be a new role, a new company, or a new field. Neither trivia nor a reasoning test answers that. Pigment's Career Self-Discovery Assessment is built for that. It looks at your habits at work, like how you make decisions, deal with people, and plan your time, and points you to a few directions to try and a clear next step. It costs $79.
Back to the book for a second. It graded you on a show about four people who mostly avoid work. Jerry does stand-up, George bluffs his way through jobs, Elaine bounces between bosses, and Kramer never seems to need one. A real look at your working life starts somewhere they never did: what you would like your days to be made of.
For other tests that borrow the word aptitude, such as the one in our piece on the Suzy Welch aptitude test, the same question applies: is it checking what you remember, how you reason, or how you like to work?
Frequently Asked Questions
“Is the Seinfeld Aptitude Test a real book?”
Yes. Beth Golub wrote it, Carol Publishing Group put it out in 1994, and it runs 132 pages. It is a real trivia book about the show, not a real exam.
“Who wrote the Seinfeld Aptitude Test?”
Beth Golub, a fan of the show. Carol Publishing Group published it, without permission from the studio.
“What is the Seinfeld Aptitude Test?”
It is a 1994 trivia book of 643 questions about the show, titled as a joke on the SAT college exam. It is not a career or IQ test.
“Did Castle Rock sue over the Seinfeld Aptitude Test book?”
Castle Rock Entertainment, which owned the show, sued and won. In 1997 the trial court awarded $403,000 and stopped further publishing, and the appeals court upheld that in 1998, ruling the book was not fair use.
“What episode of Seinfeld has the IQ test?”
"The Cafe," season three, episode seven, first aired November 6, 1991. Elaine takes George's IQ test for him and scores 85 the first time, then 151 on a retake.
“Can you still buy a copy of the book?”
Not new. The court order stopped the publisher from printing it again, so any copy you find today was sold before the ruling.
