What’s in the drill
The Capitals challenge rewrites the text so that about 30% of words start with a capital and about 5% are written entirely in capitals. In all, roughly one word in three needs Shift. The words come from our 1,000-word English list, so the only new element is the Shift key.
Case counts. “the” typed where the text says “The” is a wrong character, and the word earns no credit until you fix it.
The three Shift errors
Capitals go wrong in three ways:
- Missed Shift: “the” for “The”. Shift pressed too late or not at all.
- Shift held too long: “THe” for “The”. The second letter landed before Shift was released.
- Broken all-caps: “WOrd” or “wORD”. Shift released too early or pressed too late.
The keyboard heatmap under your result shows which keys these errors land on, and when your accuracy is low, the note after the test lists your most frequent slips, such as “T→t”.
Technique
- Use the opposite hand’s Shift. Press Shift with the little finger of the hand that isn’t typing the letter: right Shift for letters on the left side of the keyboard, left Shift for letters on the right. Your typing hand stays in its home position, and the capital becomes a two-hand movement. In a study of 168,960 typists, letter pairs typed with alternating hands were about 5 to 20 milliseconds quicker than pairs typed with one hand, among fast, trained and untrained typists alike (Dhakal et al., 2018). That study measured letter pairs, not Shift, so take it as a reason for the technique rather than proof of it.
- Prepare Shift early. Researchers who motion-captured everyday typists recommend preparing upcoming keystrokes, starting with special keys such as Shift (Feit et al., 2016). Begin the Shift press as you finish the space before the capital.
- Release cleanly. Let go of Shift as the capital lands, before the next letter goes down.
- Hold Shift through short all-caps words. One press and one release, no Caps Lock round trip.
A short routine
- One drill at your normal pace. Note your accuracy.
- Two drills focused on clean Shift timing, even if they are slower.
- Check the slips for case errors, such as “T→t” or “H→h”.
- A punctuation drill to practice capitals in context, at the start of sentences.
Why this drill has its own records
Capitals is a challenge modifier: it changes the text, so its results are kept apart from your normal personal bests and compared only with other Capitals runs. On this page it is switched on for you; it doesn’t change your settings anywhere else. When capitals feel automatic, return to the 1-minute test and check that your plain-text speed held up.