President Trump has repeatedly highlighted his performance on cognitive testing, prompting questions about what the exam actually involves.
Trump, 79, said after a three-hour appointment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre that the results were ‘PERFECTLY’.
He appeared to be referring to what he described as a “difficult cognitive test,” widely believed to be the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, better known as the MoCA.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a brief screening tool that typically takes around 10 minutes and is used to help identify mild cognitive impairment and potential early signs of dementia.
It reviews several brain functions, including attention, memory, language skills, and executive functioning. The test is scored out of 30, with 26 or higher generally considered within the normal range.
Scores from 18 to 25 can suggest mild cognitive impairment, although clinicians may adjust interpretations based on a person’s educational background.
The MoCA includes a range of tasks that many people would find fairly simple, covering different types of thinking and recall.
One section asks the participant to identify an animal shown in a drawing, while another requires drawing a clock face with a specified time.
There is also a memory component where the person is asked to repeat a list of five words. In one commonly circulated version, the words are: leg, cotton, school, tomato, white.
An additional “abstract” item asks the participant to explain how two things are alike—for example, describing the relationship between “banana” and “orange.”
In the attention portion, the participant listens to a sequence of letters and taps on the table whenever the letter “A” is said.
Other tasks are time- and sequence-based, such as listing as many words beginning with the letter B as possible in one minute, and repeating a short string of numbers in reverse order.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Unlike other US Presidents, none of whom have ever taken an approved, high difficulty, Cognitive Test, I scored a perfect 30 out of 30, considered ‘extreme intelligence’.
“In fact, this is my fourth such test, all PERFECT or 120 correct answers out of 120 questions asked! It is very rare that anyone gets a Perfect Score, especially when achieved four times in a row.”
Presidential Doctor Sean Patrick Barbabella said in a statement that Trump was ‘fully fit’ to be president, referencing a CT scan, heart imaging, preventative checks, and cancer screenings.
Additional medical details reported that the president weighed 238 pounds (108 kg), which is 14 pounds (6 kg) more than during a medical exam in April 2025.
His medical team reportedly advised him on diet, exercise, and weight loss, while concluding that his “cognitive and physical performance are excellent.”
At 6-foot-3 (1.9 meters), Trump’s body mass index was listed as 29.7. A BMI of 30 is generally categorized by doctors as obese.
While access to the latest version of the MoCA requires professional or research registration, the 2018 edition follows the same general question style and is available online. You can see it by clicking here