in a mixed review, online hip hop publication "hiphopdx" wrote that "there is no new movement birthed; there is no paradigm shift about the occur; it's simply as the title states: a series of harmonic evaluations meant to gauge audience reaction. instead of creating a new wave, asap rocky has drowned himself in his own ambitions and lost his identity along the way." similarly, stephen kearse of "pitchfork" believed there to be flaws in the experimentation, writing: "rocky is enamored with collision. his approach to songcraft on "testing" is to mash sounds together and capture the friction. the results are often dismal." kevin ritchie of "now" believed that ""testing"s title might suggest experimentation, but it delivers more on tentativeness, with a smattering of solid songs mixed into aesthetically interesting but unresolved experiments", criticizing the lyricism and flows that "aren't as ambitious as the production." fred thomas also provided a mixed review for allmusic, stating that "while in some ways "testing" is more musical than anything we've heard from a$ap rocky before, it's also more confused, with ideas and musical shifts colliding at times to the point of randomness. the album title itself refers to testing new sounds and pushing in new directions in hopes of growth. like any set of experiments, "testing" offers some success, some failure, and some moments that can only be met with a blank stare. though songs like the gorgeous frank ocean collaboration "purity", or the darkly simmering "fukk sleep" featuring fka twigs, take risks that push a$ap rocky to new, exciting territory, some of the experiments that made it onto "testing" could have been left bubbling over in the lab rather than weighing down the rest of the album."