Are You Ready to Quit Smoking? 10-Question Readiness Quiz

Take this am I ready to quit smoking quiz before you pick a quit date. It has 10 questions, takes about three minutes, and gives you a score from 0 to 30 with a next step for your band. The first three questions come from research tools used in real smoking studies, and the rest help you check your plan. It is a self-reflection tool, not a diagnosis. Every score comes with something useful to do this week.

What Quit Readiness Means (and Why It Is Not Addiction)

Readiness and addiction are two different questions. Addiction asks how strongly your body and routines depend on nicotine. Readiness asks how much you want to stop, how soon, and how prepared you are. Someone can be heavily dependent and completely ready. Someone who smokes three cigarettes a day can have no wish to stop at all. If you want to measure the physical side, take the nicotine dependence test as well. It tells you how much help with withdrawal you are likely to need.

Researchers have measured readiness for decades. The best-known framework is the stages of change model. It groups smokers by whether they are thinking about quitting in the next six months, planning to within 30 days, and whether they have tried in the past year. In a 1991 study, the stage people were in predicted who went on to try quitting and who succeeded one and six months later (staging criteria as described by Kim et al., PLoS One, 2018). Researchers also note that the exact time cut-offs are debated, so treat any stage as a rough guide.

In England, a single question called the Motivation To Stop Scale is used in a large national survey. When smokers were followed for six months, those at the highest of its seven levels had 6.8 times the odds of making a quit attempt compared with those at the lowest (Kotz et al., Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2013). Its accuracy score was 0.67 on a scale where 0.5 is chance and 1 is perfect. Motivation matters, but it does not decide the outcome on its own. That is why this quiz adds questions about support, triggers and slips.

NHS inform, Scotland’s national health information service, has a short video on getting ready to stop. It is worth watching before you answer.

The 10-Question Readiness Quiz

Pick the one answer that fits you best for each question, and note the points in brackets. Answer for how you feel today, not how you think you should feel. There are no wrong answers.

Part 1: How much do you want to stop? (questions 1–3)

1. Which of the following best describes you? These seven statements are the Motivation To Stop Scale, quoted word for word from England’s Smoking Toolkit Study (Jackson et al., Addiction, 2025). The points are our own grouping.

• I do not want to stop smoking (0)
• I think I should stop smoking but do not really want to (0)
• I want to stop smoking but have not thought about when (1)
• I really want to stop smoking but I do not know when I will (1)
• I want to stop smoking and hope to soon (2)
• I really want to stop smoking and intend to in the next 3 months (3)
• I really want to stop smoking and intend to in the next month (3)

2. When do you plan to quit? These timeframes match the stages of change staging questions.

• I have no plan to quit (0)
• Someday, but not in the next six months (1)
• Within the next six months (2)
• Within the next 30 days (3)

3. Have you tried to quit in the past? A recent attempt is part of the preparation stage, and past attempts help predict future ones.

• No, I have never tried (0)
• Yes, but more than a year ago (2)
• Yes, within the past 12 months (3)

Part 2: How prepared are you? (questions 4–10)

4. How important is quitting to you right now, compared with everything else going on?

• Not important at the moment (0)
• Somewhat important (1)
• Very important (2)
• The most important change I want to make this year (3)

5. How confident are you that you could stay smoke-free for 28 days?

• Not at all confident (0)
• A little confident (1)
• Fairly confident (2)
• Very confident (3)

6. Can you name your own main reason for quitting in one sentence?

• No, not really (0)
• Sort of, but it is mostly what other people want (1)
• Yes, and it matters to me personally (3)

7. Do you know your three biggest smoking triggers? Examples include your first coffee, the drive home, stress at work or a drink with friends.

• No idea (0)
• I could guess one or two (1)
• Yes, I know them well (2)
• Yes, and I have tracked them (3)

8. Have you lined up support? This could be a stop smoking service, a pharmacist or doctor, a quitline, a friend or an app.

• None yet (0)
• One person or tool (2)
• Professional support plus at least one other source (3)

9. Have you chosen how you will quit?

• Not yet (0)
• I am still comparing options (1)
• Yes, I have picked a method (2)
• Yes, and I have the product, prescription or appointment arranged (3)

10. If you smoked a cigarette in your first week, what would you do?

• Probably give up on this attempt (0)
• I am not sure (1)
• Carry on, but I have no specific plan (2)
• I have a plan: note what triggered it, and carry on with my quit date unchanged (3)

Scoring Your Answers

Add up your points for all 10 questions. The maximum is 30. The bands below are our self-reflection guide, not validated clinical cut-offs, so a score of 20 is not meaningfully different from 21. Your lowest-scoring questions show what to work on.

If question 1 is your weakest answer, you are in good company. In England between 2021 and 2024, 44.0% of daily smokers picked one of the two “no desire” statements. Only 14.8% picked one of the two highest levels (Jackson et al., 2025). Motivation can rise and fall, so a low score today does not fix where you will be in three months.

Score 0–10: Not Yet, and What to Do This Week

A low score does not mean you will never quit. It means that pushing yourself to set a date right now would probably backfire. The goal for this week is to learn more about your own smoking without committing to anything.

• Write down what you get from smoking and what it costs you. Keep both lists honest.
• Notice one trigger a day. Just note where you were and how you felt.
• Read about quitting without deciding. Our guide to quitting when you don’t want to was written for exactly this stage.
• If fear is holding you back, work through the seven common fears about quitting. Fear of withdrawal or of failing again is common, and each one has a practical answer.
• Take the quiz again in a month. Your answers may look different after a few weeks of noticing.

Score 11–20: Getting Ready, So Build the Plan

Many people who want to quit land here. The motivation is there, but some of the practical pieces are missing. Look back at your lowest-scoring questions from part 2 and fix them one at a time over the next two to four weeks.

For the trigger step, follow our guide to tracking a week before you quit. For the method, use our walk-through on choosing a quit method. Your dependence test result matters here. The NHS says that if you smoke within 30 minutes of waking, or find the first cigarette of the day the hardest to give up, quitting on willpower alone may be harder than you think.

Score 21–30: Ready, So Set Your Quit Date

You want to stop soon, and most of the plan is in place. Waiting for a perfect moment now usually lets motivation drain away. Pick a date within the next two weeks, ideally a day without unusual stress, and use our step-by-step guide to setting a quit date.

1. Confirm your method and supplies. If you are using NRT or a prescription, have it ready before the date and ask your pharmacist or doctor when to start it.
2. Book professional support. NHS Better Health says expert help makes you 3 times more likely to quit for good. England’s National Smokefree Helpline is on 0300 123 1044. In the US, 1-800-QUIT-NOW connects you to your state quitline.
3. Set up your tracking. In iQuit you can pick your quit approach, watch days smoke-free and money saved from the first morning, and use the SOS craving tools when a craving spikes.
4. Plan the first three days hour by hour. Cover your usual first cigarette, breaks and evenings.
5. Remove cigarettes, lighters and ashtrays the night before.

Raising Your Confidence Score

Question 5 is often the hardest to answer honestly, especially after earlier attempts. When the government launched Stoptober in 2022, it pointed to research showing that self-confidence is a major factor in successful attempts at quitting smoking. Confidence can be built on purpose.

• Treat past attempts as practice. Write down how long your longest attempt lasted and what ended it. That is your most useful piece of planning data.
• Try short smoke-free stretches first. Delay your first cigarette by an hour, or skip one fixed cigarette a day for a week. Small wins make 28 days feel possible.
• Borrow confidence from support. An adviser, a quitline or a friend who has quit can see progress you do not notice yourself.
• Use medicine if withdrawal worries you. The NHS says combining a nicotine-free medicine from your doctor with NRT makes you over 5 times more likely to quit for good. Ask a doctor or pharmacist what suits you.
• Watch the evidence build. Seeing days smoke-free, cigarettes avoided and money saved add up each day is a simple, concrete way to believe you can keep going.

Readiness Quiz FAQ