Carrier words: putting it together

The two hundred most frequent words and the few dozen pairs that build them are, between them, most of what you will ever type. This review puts them back into ordinary prose, which is the only place they matter, and asks for thirty words a minute. That is the speed at which typing starts to keep up with careful thought, and many people who type all day never reach it. If you pass this check you are typing faster than most of the people around you.

The drills below are longer passages rather than word lists, so the habits from the first unit have to hold: even pace, eyes ahead, cheap corrections. Nothing blocks. Watch your consistency number on the result card; on prose made of familiar words, it should be high.

• The first hundred are short and mostly alternate hands: they should feel automatic.
• The second hundred are longer: let the awkward pair inside each take its beat.
• Pairs and triples are the movements: th, in, er, ing, ion, ent.

The Weak Spot Drill at the end of this unit is worth attention. On carrier words, a recurring target is usually a finger rather than a key: the ring finger on O and L, say, or the right little finger on P. If that is what it shows, the earlier Foundations lesson for that finger is worth a revisit.