How Good Is My Typing? The Printable 8-Question Self-Test

How good your typing is, eight questions reveal faster than any test: do you look at the keyboard? Do you use all ten fingers? Can you find F and J without looking? The printable self-test counts your yes answers and places you in one of three levels. Each level has a different starting point, from lesson 0 to the certificate. Two minutes, a pen, honest answers.

The eight questions

1. I type without looking at the keyboard.
2. I use all ten fingers, including the pinkies.
3. My fingers return to the home position after every keystroke.
4. I find F and J by the bumps without looking.
5. I type numbers and symbols without searching.
6. I type more than 40 words per minute.
7. I make fewer than 5 percent errors.
8. I use shortcuts like Ctrl + C instead of the mouse.

The result

• 0 to 2 yes: Fresh start. Begin with lesson 0 in the touch typing course, 15 minutes a day. That is not a step back but the fastest route: anyone with four-finger habits learns the ten best from scratch.
• 3 to 5 yes: Build-up. Take the free placement test. It checks every key and shows which lessons you can skip.
• 6 to 8 yes: Fine-tuning. Measure your typing speed, work on numbers and symbols and get the certificate as proof.

Why these questions

Questions 1 to 4 ask about technique, 5 to 8 about results. The Aalto study with 168,000 participants shows the two are linked: whoever keeps their eyes on the screen and has fixed finger-to-key assignments types faster, whether or not they ever formally learned the method. The 40 WPM threshold in question 6 sits deliberately below the study average of 51.6 but well above the 27 WPM of a two-finger typist. Reaching it means the basics are there. The 5 percent in question 7 is the line above which corrections cost more time than the speed gains.

Pro tip

Answer question 1 with a trick: put a towel over the keyboard and write one sentence. If the result is readable, the answer is yes. Most people overestimate how rarely they look.

Next step

Anyone landing on level 1 or 2 prints the finger keyboard map as well and starts the progress tracker. What is behind the numbers is explained in the article on typing speed.

Sources

• Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes - Aalto University and University of Cambridge, CHI 2018: 168,000 participants, average 51.6 WPM, uncorrected error rate 1.167 percent.
• How We Type: Movement Strategies and Performance in Everyday Typing - Aalto University, CHI 2016: eyes on the screen and fixed finger-to-key assignment predict speed, even without formal training.
• Words per minute (Wikipedia) - two-finger typists at about 27 WPM.