Just got 108. I'm having difficulties with the "prove you're not a bot" part of the test though.

Edit: OK, actually much closer to high high 80's, low 90s.

I just tried typing with my fingers on the home keys, absolutely impossible for me to type properly. I guess if I want to break through the 70s barrier I'd have to completely revamp the way I type, I make way too many mistakes because I don't keep my hand in a consistent position and eventually hit the wrong key which throws me completely out of whack since I have no frame of reference.

Just got 97 with two glaring mistakes. I'm going to break 100 and then I'm retiring.

31 wpm, lol.

I'll try to find an easier one sentence typing test to see if I can get a high short-time WPM. I'm also using a mac laptop keyboard.



I used to use this keyboard and I was always +110WPM w/ it, only keyboard I've broken 130WPM w/.



I wonder how many of these +130 guys use the Dvorak keyboard. Surprised this hasn't been brought up yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard

I think a keyboard like this would be perfect!

i frequently get 130+ while making mistakes. ctrl+a and backspace helps when you have made a huge one.

i am using a laptop and don't put my fingers on the traditional home keys, though i guess you could say my home keys are shift, a, d, f, and something like j, o, p and ' i guess (' is to the right of ; on this laptop). i do a ton of work with the first two fingers of each hand.

Control + backspace is also key

ah, nice

Don't I have to use both pinkies for that?

Probably an impossible maneuver for me.

Wouldn't all courtroom typists + many secretaries crush his score?

130 is definitely impressive but you know there are people out there who would take a dump on a paragraph of 130 per.

I don't really think theres that many people that can take a dump on 130 wpm... 132 wpm is 100th percentile according to TypeRacer (see below). Also, they use a different machine where the wpm is a bit different from using a conventional keyboard.

Updated stats... PS - the site uses alot of 'typing bots', since they pair groups of people by wpm and I guess for slow / fast extremes theres not always users.

After a bit of practice I managed to get up to 114 wpm with 99% accuracy



I'm surprised to see how many people are getting higher than 130+ wpm on this test.... that just seems insane to me.

Never knew this, thanks.

If you go to the site as a guest and break 100 you have to take a test to prove you're not cheating.

109WPM on the race.
133WPM on the test. You don't have to go back for mistakes. Huge difference.

avg 132wpm and you've lost 19 races? tough competition out there..

22 baby

I've taken it 10 times, and my scores are pretty consistent. I really hate the style of text on there. The text reads like a 7th grader's book report.

My 10 scores: 78, 73, 92, 75, 78, 66, 90, 78, 82, 79 for a mean of 79.1, a mode of 78, and a median of 78.

I'm surprised some of your scores are jumping all over the place.

This was fun Since all my typing now is friendly email and posting, I type a lot slower than this usually. Good to know it is still there under pressure.




The reason for the accuracy and speed are pretty pathetic:
a) I went to a private school and was taught typing in 6th and 7th grade and actually took it seriously
b) I played a ton of text-based games growing up in the early-mid 90s (Zork series, Planetfall, Hitchhiker's Guide etc-->clan leader of a MUD-->real games in college when I had a decent computer)

It's like riding a bike, though...pretty amazing how the human mind works.

Sorry, but this is simply not true. Anyone who posts on 2p2 regularly could get into the 120+ range through extensive daily practice.

This reminds me of a book I recently read called 'Talent is Overrated' by Geoff Colvin. I picked up it up as a musician looking to make my practice more efficient. Essentially, people practice or attain a skill up until a point where it is 'good enough' and then level off not because that is the maximum of their talent, but because they do not consistently push themselves to fail and reach outside of their comfort zone.

The classic example is that of the amateur musician vs. the professional. There are people that play piano for twenty years and read through the same pieces a few times a week from start to finish and don't really understand why they never improve. My mother was like this: she has played the harpsichord for 40 years and is about as good technically as an above-average 12-year old.

A professional musician will approach practice very differently. They would look at a piece like that, instead of just playing it through over and over, they will take ONE extremely difficult phrase and first clap the rhythm and sing it with a metronome, then examine the dynamics and phrasing, add the notes, all starting at a very slow speed. Over an hour of practice they will increase the speed, all the while experimenting with interpretation and expression. If it is a sung piece, throw in translation (if in another language), subtext, acting in every phrase and an individual classical aria can take months to truly learn at a professional level. Over time by practicing in this intense, focused way, you can take your natural talent to the next level.

There is another great book that came out recently called 'Moonwalking with Einstein', which describes the story and techniques of someone with self-described average memory who, through extensive focused practice, became a world champion at memorization and could memorize the exact order of 1,000+ digits in an hour. Awesome book and highly recommended.

Tying this back to typing: just in an example of my typing (130ish WPM with no practice), I could think of at least two huge leaks in my typing that would improve me up to probably 140 with repeated daily practice. Just in ten exercises, I noticed a number of flaws in my typing.
-I need to look down for all punctuation I rarely use in my writing, such as " ; and -
-my numbers are WAY slower, but there is really no reason for this except it is the way we were taught.

So if I were to approach this the way I approach music, I would spend an hour a day typing random 100-digit sequences until I could do it blindfolded. For punctuation, I could get someone to put together a bunch of sentences with unusual or difficult punctuation.

With these two fixes I could probably get my WPM to 150+ over a few months. Of course, my 'good enough' is plenty good enough so I (like most normal people at jobs typing 50 wpm) will focus my efforts on more important things

What makes you think this? And what do you mean by "anyone who posts on 2p2 regularly"?

120 is ridiculously fast.

2nd try, easy passage though

edit:

I meant that a forum regular in a place like OOT possesses certain talent that would potentially allow them to reach the top percentile of something like typing with a lot of focused practice:
-smarter than the average bear
-from playing online poker (one would hope), excellent hand-eye coordination, the ability to spot leaks and the ability to process information on the computer quickly.
-quick reading comprehension on a computer screen
-experience typing
-very competitive

The average person here (including myself) types thousands of words a day but never really puts themselves out of their comfort zone in WPM and typing accuracy.

As I said in my previous post, I can type 130 but my average speed on a daily basis is much slower, around 80 probably and if I was still working in an office might be as low as 50 (which would still faster than everyone else there). As long as you can type 'good enough' there is no real reason to improve.

I'm not a runner so correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not going to improve your top speed in the 100-yard dash by speed-walking.

My main point is that through daily focused practice of any talent (typing, poker, music, athletic ability) where you are constantly putting yourself out of your comfort zone you would be able to drastically improve your performance.

For instance, by doing this silly typing game a couple hours a day for a few months competing with yourself and others where it physically stops you if you type poorly you would definitely be able to improve your WPM and accuracy.

More importantly, if you would isolate particular points of your typing and focusing on specific areas -like leaks in poker and how musicians practice phrasing and athletes practice certain drills- and drill those daily then you could definitely improve your WPM to a very high level.

So, somebody got 275?

Not many people reach top %iles.

And if everyone improves (absolute), they aren't really improving as compared to their peers (relative). If 120 wpm really is like top 2%, it stands to reason that not many people can get there - even with infinite practice.

Fair enough, but forum regulars in OOT are not a random sample. I would imagine most of the people in this thread are already in the top % in the traits that I listed. I said the potential; it's pretty obvious that only a few people would be motivated to do something like this.

Also, this is not the LSAT where super smart people all compete against each other and study for hours and hours and eventually shift the curve. We are talking about typing a lot faster than most people, but most people don't give a **** about typing and barely know how to do it efficiently and never practice so there is massive room to improve over the average score.

I would take a prop bet to try and get to 150 over an average of 20 games or so if the price and timeline was right. My guess is three months of practice two hours a day. It would be much harder for me to go up 20 points than for someone at 90 to hit 110, too.