--- title: Quiz: How Effective is Your Birth Control? description: What's the most effective birth control: the pill, condoms, IUD, implant, vaginal ring or others? canonical: https://time.com/3924214/quiz-how-effective-is-your-birth-control/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-17T16:01:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T08:17:01.580Z article:section: Health og:title: Quiz: How Effective is Your Birth Control? og:description: What's the most effective birth control: the pill, condoms, IUD, implant, vaginal ring or others? og:url: https://time.com/3924214/quiz-how-effective-is-your-birth-control/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfffc9dffd9430b02/69877df65f570f94ccb1521e/iud.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: IUD birthcontrol og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Quiz: How Effective is Your Birth Control? twitter:description: What's the most effective birth control: the pill, condoms, IUD, implant, vaginal ring or others? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfffc9dffd9430b02/69877df65f570f94ccb1521e/iud.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Quiz: How Effective Is Your Birth Control? by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jun 17, 2015 4:01 PM UTC  Intrauterine device --- Image by © Timothy Hogan/Corbis Intrauterine device --- Image by © Timothy Hogan/CorbisPhoto Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME; Corbis by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jun 17, 2015 4:01 PM UTC Teen birth and pregnancy rates [are at a record low](http://time.com/3924069/teen-birth-rate/), possibly due to teens use of better birth control methods. Do you know how effective your birth control is? Birth control methods vary widely in terms of effectiveness and duration of use. People choose their methods for a wide variety of reasons, but recent data shows that when women are informed and counseled about different forms of contraceptives, they tend to opt for the most effective types and unintended pregnancies drop. Typical use failure rates are used to determine effectiveness, and show the rate the method fails during “typical use,” which accounts of inconsistent or incorrect use of the method (think missing a pill or a broken condom). Guess the typical use failure rates of the birth control options below: ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3924214/quiz-how-effective-is-your-birth-control/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3924214/quiz-how-effective-is-your-birth-control/"},"headline":"Quiz: How Effective Is Your Birth Control?","datePublished":"2015-06-17T16:01:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:17:01.580Z","description":"Test your contraceptive IQ","url":"https://time.com/3924214/quiz-how-effective-is-your-birth-control/","keywords":["Birth Control","Pregnancy","Sex","IUD","birth control pill"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfffc9dffd9430b02/69877df65f570f94ccb1521e/iud.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfffc9dffd9430b02/69877df65f570f94ccb1521e/iud.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"IUD birthcontrol","caption":"IUD birthcontrol","creditText":"Photo Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME; Corbis","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/birth-control/","name":"Birth Control"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3924214/quiz-how-effective-is-your-birth-control/","name":"Quiz: How Effective Is Your Birth Control?"}}]}] ```