Typing Speed Test

WPM stands for words per minute, the standard measure of typing speed. Because real words vary so much in length, a typing test does not count them. It counts characters and divides by five. Every letter, space and punctuation mark is one character, so five characters make one "word". If you type 300 correct characters in one minute, your speed is 60 WPM, whatever the words happened to be.

There are two versions of the number. Raw (or gross) WPM counts every key you press, including the wrong ones. Net WPM counts only the characters in your final text that are correct, so mistakes that are still sitting in the text take speed away. This test headlines your net WPM, because it rewards typing that is both quick and right, and it shows your raw WPM beside it.

Most adults who do not practise type at roughly 35 to 45 WPM, and 40 WPM is the figure usually quoted as average. Large online studies, whose volunteers tend to be keen typists, have reported averages in the region of 50 WPM. A 2018 study of 168,000 volunteers from more than 200 countries, by researchers at Aalto University and the University of Cambridge, also found that the fastest typists make fewer errors, and that many of them press the next key before they have released the last one.

As a rough guide to what your result means:

• Under 25 WPM: a beginner, usually still finding keys by looking at the keyboard.
• 25 to 40 WPM: a typical casual typist. Fine for email and messages.
• 40 to 60 WPM: comfortable for office work, and enough for many typing tests set by employers and government bodies.
• 60 to 80 WPM: fast. This is where professional typists, writers and data entry staff usually sit.
• Above 80 WPM: very fast. Speeds over 100 WPM are rare, and over 120 WPM is competition level.

These bands are rules of thumb, not official grades. Speed on its own is not the goal: a fast run full of errors is worth less than a slightly slower, clean one. Most coaches suggest reaching a net accuracy of 95 per cent or better before you push for more speed.

1. Learn touch typing. Keep your fingers on the home row and use the same finger for the same keys every time. The on-screen keyboard on this page can show a tint for each finger and highlights the next key, which is a quick way to learn the layout.
2. Put accuracy first. Slow down until your net accuracy is above 95 per cent, then increase your speed in small steps. Speed built on accuracy lasts; speed built on guessing does not.
3. Keep your eyes on the text, not on your hands. Read a few words ahead of the one you are typing, so your fingers always have the next word ready.
4. Aim for a steady rhythm. Evenly spaced key presses beat bursts of speed followed by pauses, and a calm pace makes fewer errors.
5. Study the keys you missed. The results screen lists them. Practise those keys on purpose in short drills, then take the test again and see whether they drop off the list.
6. Practise little and often. Fifteen minutes every day builds muscle memory faster than two hours once a week.
7. Look after your posture. Sit upright with your elbows near a right angle, keep your wrists straight rather than bent, and rest your eyes and hands for a minute every half hour.

Retake the test often, but let the text change: this page draws from hundreds of words and quotes and dozens of formal passages, so you improve at typing rather than at remembering one paragraph.

The clock starts with your first key press, not when the page loads, and it stops when the time you chose has run out. If you click away from the text during a test, the clock pauses and a "click to continue" message appears, so an interruption does not ruin a good run. Keys that are not part of typing, such as Alt, Ctrl and the arrow keys, are ignored.

Accuracy is reported twice, because there are two honest ways to measure it. Raw accuracy is the share of every key you pressed that was correct. If you hit a wrong key and fix it with Backspace, that wrong key press still counts against you, because the mistake was made. Net accuracy is the share of the characters in your final text that are correct, so it only sees what is left at the end.

A typist who corrects every slip can finish with a perfect text and a net accuracy of 100 per cent, while the raw figure shows how many slips there were along the way. The gap between the two numbers tells you how much you lean on Backspace. The results screen also counts your Backspaces and lists the keys you got wrong most often, with the finger that should press each one.

You choose the test as well as taking it. Practice mode offers 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1, 2 and 5 minutes, and Exam mode adds 10 and 15 minutes, the lengths of many real typing exams. The Custom option takes any length from half a minute to 60 minutes. The type of text is your choice too: common words, quotes, punctuation-heavy lines, numbers, a mix, or in Exam mode formal passages. Within the type you choose, the text is picked at random, and Restart gives you a new passage. The text never runs out, because new passages are chained on as you type, so even a very long test keeps going until the clock stops it.

This section is for candidates preparing for typing tests in Indian government recruitment. If that is not you, you can skip straight to the questions below.

Indian government exams often state typing speed in a different way from the one used elsewhere. Instead of words per minute (WPM), many use key depressions per hour, or KDPH: the number of keys you press in an hour of typing, counting every letter, space and punctuation mark. In Exam mode the results screen shows your speed in both units, so you can compare it with a notification directly.

Whichever unit is used, a typing test is usually marked on net speed rather than gross speed. Gross speed counts everything you typed, right or wrong. Net speed is what remains after errors have been deducted under that exam's own rules, so a fast run with many mistakes can score lower than a slower, cleaner one. Exams differ in how they deduct errors and in how many they allow, which is why accuracy matters as much as speed.

The two units are linked by one common rule: one word is five key depressions. That makes 1 WPM equal to 300 KDPH, and it means 8,000 key depressions per hour works out to roughly 27 WPM (8,000 divided by 5 is 1,600 words an hour, and 1,600 divided by 60 is about 27 a minute).

The SSC CGL Data Entry Speed Test (DEST) is a good example of how a requirement is written. It has long required about 2,000 key depressions in 15 minutes, which is 8,000 key depressions per hour. The post, the passage and the rules for counting errors can change between recruitment cycles, so treat it as an illustration of the method rather than as the figure for this year.

CPCT, the Madhya Pradesh Computer Proficiency Certification Test, works differently from a simple pass or fail exam. It produces a score card that records how you performed. Each recruiting department then sets its own minimum for the posts it is filling, and those minimums can differ from one department and one recruitment to another. A score card on its own therefore does not tell you whether you meet the requirement for a particular post.

Before you set a practice target, find these details in your own notification:

• the unit the speed is stated in (WPM or KDPH) and the length of the test
• how mistakes are counted and how many are allowed
• the language, the keyboard layout and the kind of passage
• the settings of the test computer, such as whether spell check and editing tools are switched off

Exam mode uses original passages written in the style of government typing tests: administrative notes, descriptions of public services and departmental reports, with numbers, commas, brackets and quotation marks. They are not taken from any real exam paper. It offers 10 and 15 minute tests, lengths that many typing exams use, and the Custom option lets you set any other length up to 60 minutes. This test types English only; the Hindi tests in these exams use different keyboard layouts and fonts.

Always check the official notification for your specific exam and year, because the requirements change.