FluencyLesson 18 of 20 · Endurance and precision
Five minutes
The standard length of a professional typing test, and the length at which stamina, not skill, decides the result.
- New keys
- No new keys
- To pass
- Done when the check reaches 95% accuracy and 42 words a minute.
Lesson 18 is locked
It opens when you pass the check in lesson 17 (Three minutes). Lessons open one at a time, in order.
Five minutes is the length most formal typing tests use, and there is a reason for it. Three minutes can be carried by a good start; five cannot. Somewhere around the fourth minute, whatever tension has been building arrives all at once, the error rate climbs, and a typist who was steady begins to fumble. The test is designed to find that point, and the only way to move it is to practise at that length until it moves.
There are two strategies for a long run and only one of them works. The first is to go fast early and bank words against the slow finish; it fails, because the errors made while going fast cost more than the words gained, and because the fast start is exactly what brings the fatigue on sooner. The second is to find a pace you could hold for ten minutes and hold it for five. It feels slow in the first minute. It is not slow by the fifth.
The passage below is long enough that you will not finish it, and it is meant to be typed at one pace from beginning to end. The target is forty-two words a minute at ninety-five percent. Watch your hands for tension at the half-way point, and if you find it, loosen them without stopping.