30 second typing test
30 seconds on the clock. It starts when you press the first key.
- Gross WPM
- 0
- Accuracy
- 0%
- Wrong words left in
- 0
- Keystrokes / hour
- 0
- Time
- 0 s
What 30 seconds of typing looks like
- At 30 WPM you type
- 15 words
- At 40 WPM (office average)
- 20 words
- At 60 WPM
- 30 words
- Keystrokes at 40 WPM
- 100
A sprint: it measures how fast your fingers can go, not how long you can keep it up. Expect a figure a little higher than on a longer test. One uncorrected wrong word takes 2 WPM off the net result of a 30 second test.
Other lengths
How the score is worked out
A “word” is five keystrokes, spaces included — the convention typing exams use, so that long and short words count fairly.
- Gross WPM = everything you typed ÷ 5 ÷ minutes.
- Net WPM = gross minus one for every wrong word you left in, per minute. This is the number exams and employers ask for.
- Accuracy = correct keystrokes ÷ all keystrokes. A mistake you went back and fixed no longer costs speed, but it still costs accuracy.
- Keystrokes per hour (KPH) is the same speed in the unit data-entry jobs and some government exams quote.
Keep going
Typing lessons
Fifteen short lessons, two new keys at a time, with the keyboard showing which finger goes where.
Practice texts
Type the opening lines of classic books: real sentences, capitals and punctuation.
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.