Typing speed test: find your words per minute

Typing tests count a "word" as 5 characters, including spaces and punctuation, so long and short words even out. This test counts only the characters you typed correctly:

Raw speed counts every character, right or wrong. Accuracy is the share of characters you typed that match the passage. A high raw speed with low accuracy means you'd spend the time saved fixing mistakes.

• Use the home row. Rest your left fingers on A S D F and your right on J K L ;, with thumbs on the space bar. The small bumps on F and J let you find them without looking.
• Don't look at the keys. It feels slower at first, but it's the only way to get fast.
• Go for accuracy first. Type at a speed where you rarely make mistakes. Speed builds on its own.
• Practise little and often. Ten minutes a day helps more than an hour once a week, the same as any skill.
• Sit well. Feet flat, wrists straight and the screen at eye level.

More coursework, homework and exams are done on a computer than ever, and some students sit exams on a laptop as an access arrangement. If your typing is slow, your thinking has to wait for your fingers. Getting faster means more of your time goes on what you're writing rather than how. The passages in this test are about studying and school subjects, so you pick up a tip or two while you practise.

• Take the 1-minute or 2-minute test for a steadier score: 30 seconds is easily skewed by one slip.
• Do a couple of practice runs to warm up, then take your best.
• Use the same keyboard each time when you compare scores. Laptop and desktop keyboards feel different.
• Mobile typing works too, but phone keyboards aren't comparable to a physical keyboard.

Each time you press New passage you get a different text, so you're practising typing rather than memorising one paragraph. Like any skill, steady practice beats cramming: see our guide to spaced repetition for why short, regular sessions stick.