Chimp Test Tips: Memorising Number Layouts Against the Clock

Updated October 2026

The Chimp Test looks like a pure memory exercise: a few numbers flash up on a grid, they vanish, and you tap them back in order. In this version, though, you are racing a single 60-second clock, and that changes how you should play. A run is decided by how many correct taps you can fit into one minute, not by how far you can stretch your memory in a calm setting. This guide walks through the exact rules, the arithmetic of the clock, and memory techniques that hold up when time is short.

How a round actually works

The board is a 5 by 5 grid of 25 squares. The first round places the numbers 1 to 4 on four randomly chosen squares; every other square stays blank. While you have not touched anything, all the numbers stay visible, so the preview lasts exactly as long as you want it to. The moment you tap the square showing 1, every remaining number is covered. The covered squares do not disappear: they stay on screen as plain grey tiles, so you always know where the targets are. What you have to remember is only the order.

Tap the covered tiles from 2 upward. Each correct tap removes that tile. When the last one is gone, the board pauses for half a second, then a new round deals one more number than before, at completely fresh positions. Nothing from the previous layout carries over, so there is no point trying to spot a pattern across rounds.

The level counter at the top shows the size of the round you are currently attempting. Your final score is the largest round you fully cleared, so if time runs out while you are on level 11, your score is 10. Rounds keep growing until all 25 squares are numbered; from then on every round is a 25-number round, which makes 25 the highest score the game can record.

What a mistake really costs

A wrong tap does not end the run and does not restart the round. The game takes two seconds off the clock, flashes the square red, and waits for the number it was expecting. You can carry on from exactly where you were. Blank squares are not buttons at all, and tiles you have already cleared cannot be touched again, so a stray tap on empty space costs nothing. Only tapping a numbered tile out of order is punished.

This has a practical consequence. If you forget where a number is, guessing is not a disaster: a wrong guess costs two seconds and you can immediately try again. Stopping to stare at the board can easily cost more than one bad guess. Still, two seconds is a lot when you look at the arithmetic below, so treat guessing as a recovery tool rather than a plan. A penalty can also end the game on the spot if it takes the clock to zero.

The arithmetic of sixty seconds

The clock starts when you press Start, not when you first tap a number, and it keeps running during the preview and during the half-second pause after each cleared round. It is measured in real time, so leaving the tab or locking the phone does not stop it.

Because rounds start at four numbers and grow by one, reaching a given score takes a fixed number of correct taps. Clearing up to level 10 takes 4 + 5 + ... + 10 = 49 taps across seven rounds. Clearing level 15 takes 114 taps over twelve rounds, and clearing level 20 takes 204 taps over seventeen rounds. The pauses between rounds alone eat 3.5, 6 and 8.5 seconds of those three runs.

Now divide what is left of the minute by the taps. A score of 15 allows roughly 0.47 seconds per tap, and that budget has to include all your preview time. A score of 20 leaves about a quarter of a second per tap. In other words, beyond the low teens the limit is speed, not memory span. Each two-second penalty is worth four to eight correct taps at those rates, which is why accuracy still matters even though a miss is forgiven.

Taking a snapshot instead of reading

The fastest players do not read the numbers one at a time. They take in the whole board as a picture and remember a route through it. A few habits make that easier:

• Trace a path, not a list. Follow the numbers in order with your eyes once, as if drawing a line between them. Your finger will later replay that line, and a shape such as "zigzag down the left, then hook right" is easier to keep than a list of coordinates.
• Chunk in threes or fours. Remember 2-3-4 as one shape and 5-6-7 as another. When a round has twelve or more numbers, two or three chunks are far easier to hold than twelve separate items.
• Lean on the grid edges. Squares on the border and in corners are easy anchors. Note which numbers sit on an edge and remember the inner ones relative to them.
• Spend extra glance time on the end of the sequence. The first few taps come right after the preview, while the image is fresh. The last numbers have to survive the longest, so give them the second look.

Pacing the preview

Since the preview only ends when you tap 1, you control how long you study each board. Early rounds need very little; four or five numbers can be read in one glance, and lingering just burns the clock. A useful rule is to tap 1 as soon as you can picture the whole route once without looking. If you notice yourself rereading the same corner, you have already seen enough.

As rounds get longer, the preview naturally grows, but try to keep the total time per round predictable. Many players do well with a fixed rhythm: look, trace the path once, tap 1, then play the sequence back without hesitation. Hesitating halfway through a sequence is where the image fades, and that is when out-of-order taps start.

Recovering from a blank

Sooner or later you will tap 6 and have no idea where 7 went. The remaining grey tiles help here: you know 7 is one of them, and if you remember where 8 and 9 were, those tiles are excluded. Pick the most likely candidate and tap it. If it is wrong you lose two seconds, but you also learn something, because the expected number is still 7 and one more tile has been ruled out.

What you should avoid is freezing. A long stare rarely brings the image back, and every second spent staring is a second the next round will not get. Make your best guess quickly and move on.

Training plan

1. Play a few runs where you deliberately study each board for as long as you need. Note the level where you start forgetting; that is your current memory span.
2. Next, practise the snapshot habit on rounds below that span: one glance, one traced path, then tap. Aim for zero misses rather than speed.
3. Then cut your preview time gradually. Your score will rise because you are completing more rounds per minute, even if your span does not change.
4. Watch the clock only when it turns red in the last ten seconds. Before that, keep your eyes on the grid.

Your best result is stored on your device, and any score above zero can be submitted to the Hall of Fame from the end card. The top of that list needs both a wide memory span and a quick, steady hand, and the second part is the one most players can still improve.