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This paper develops a new and potentially important behavioral measure of noncognitive skills. I quantify the extent to which students provide unpredictable or “careless ” answers on surveys. Specifically, I examine answer patterns on Likert-type items used in attitude scales. Apart from students ’ actual answers on these scales, I examine the overall pattern of answers to determine whether students appear to be providing careful or careless answers. Self-reported scales are fundamental tools for survey researchers and exist in hundreds of existing datasets. Using two national longitudinal datasets, I show that careless answer patterns from adolescent respondents are negatively predictive of later educational attainment, independent of cognitive ability and other traditionally-measured noncognitive skills. I posit that careless answers, as I have quantified them, proxy as a behavioral measure of a negative noncognitive trait.