A Tale of Two Cities

This text as typing material

Length

60 words

Characters

286

At 40 WPM

86 s

Shift presses

3

Punctuation marks

10

286 characters count as 57 exam words, so 40 WPM finishes it in about 86 seconds and 60 WPM in 57. It asks for 3 capitals and 10 punctuation marks (commas, periods), which is where a test of common words never takes you. The longest word is “foolishness”, and the less common letters K all appear.

More openings

• Herman Melville · 1851

  Moby-Dick

• Lewis Carroll · 1865

  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

• Jane Austen · 1813

  Pride and Prejudice

Keep going

• Typing test

  Gross and net WPM, accuracy and keystrokes per hour — the figures typing exams use.

• Typing lessons

  Fifteen short lessons, two new keys at a time, with the keyboard showing which finger goes where.

• Weak keys

  A drill built from the keys you miss most, worked out from your own tests.

• Times tables

  Each table with its patterns, a drill that returns to what you got wrong, and a 60-second speed test.