How the drill works
This drill runs with Word Lock, stop on error at the word. The space bar does nothing while the current word contains a mistake, so you can’t leave an error behind: fix it with Backspace, then move on. Every wrong keystroke still counts against your accuracy, and the time you spend fixing counts against your speed. The drill rewards one thing: getting it right the first time.
Because the rule changes the test, results from this drill are kept apart from your normal personal bests. The setting applies only on this page; your other tests keep your own settings.
Why accuracy comes first
In a study of 168,960 everyday typists, faster typists made fewer errors, and typists who made and corrected fewer mistakes were generally faster. Correcting an error means noticing it, finding it and pressing extra keys, which is why the authors conclude that “reducing errors by a small margin can contribute to a large gain in speed” (Dhakal et al., 2018).
TypeTrance’s scoring makes the same point. A word left wrong earns no credit at all, and accuracy counts every miss, including the ones you fixed. Text-entry researchers describe errors the same way: correcting one moves it from the uncorrected to the corrected column, but it is still an error (Soukoreff and MacKenzie, 2003).
Know your error types
| Error | Example | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Substitution | “thw” for “the” | A wrong key in place of the right one |
| Omission | “te” for “the” | A letter left out |
| Insertion | “thee” for “the” | An extra letter |
| Transposition | “teh” for “the” | Two letters in the wrong order |
In a detailed error analysis of 783 participants from the 168,960-typist study, substitutions were the most frequent of the first three: 1.65% of characters, against 0.80% for omissions and 0.67% for insertions. They were also where slow and fast typists differed most, and the authors suggest they are common when typing is less consistent and the typist has a weaker sense of where the fingers are (Dhakal et al., 2018). The long-term remedy is pressing each key with the same finger every time, one of three habits that motion-capture research linked to fast typing (Feit et al., 2016).
Find your slips
- Keyboard heatmap: the mistakes view under your result shows your error rate on each key, with the weakest keys listed in text.
- Slips: when your accuracy is low, the note after the test lists your most frequent substitutions, for example “e→r ×3”.
- Accuracy and raw speed: a high raw WPM with low accuracy means you are fast but fixing a lot.
A five-minute routine
- One drill at your normal pace. Note your accuracy.
- Two drills about 10% slower, aiming for 97% or better. That is our coach’s rule of thumb, not an official target.
- Check the heatmap and slips for the keys you miss most, and make a note of them.
- One normal 1-minute test without Word Lock, to see whether the cleaner typing carries over.
Common mistakes
- Hammering Backspace. Deleting more than the wrong letters wastes time. Stop, see the error, fix only that.
- Looking down after an error. Keep your eyes on the text and find the home keys by feel.
- Racing to make up time. After a fix, return to your normal pace instead of speeding up.
For the bigger question of when to slow down and when to push, read accuracy vs speed. For a longer clean-typing challenge, try the 100-word test.