Thursday 16 August 2012

How fast can I type this?

So today I thought I'd make a start on learning to touch type. My mam can do it and it always amazes me the way her fingers just whizz over the keys while shes having a chat and not even looking but it still manages to say what it should say. I'd love to be able to do that!

I'm not a TERRRIBLE typist. I get by with a rough idea of where most of the letters are and mainly two fingers although I sometimes really adventurous and use my middle fingers aswell. Decided to see just how bad I was before I got on with the lessons. Found an online test to do and this was my result;

Your speed was: 24wpm.

You made 3 mistakes, your mistakes are shown in bold text:

I Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus. This-that-and-the-other, for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles, who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as
'Cladius the Idiot', or 'That Claudius, or 'Claudius the Stammerer', or 'Clau-Clau-Claudius' or at best as 'Poor Uncle Claudius', am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, I suddenly found myself caught in the 'golden predicament'

Apparently an average typing speed is 40 wpm and good is anything above that. It looks like I've got a lot of work to do then especially as that test wasn't touch typed - it was just me plodding away at the keys in my own unique way.

I decided to start simple so I worked through some exercises on the bbc schools website. Alright so I'm 32 years old, not 8 but it started at the very beginning and worked up in tiny little steps. I didn't even know that those tiny ridges on the f and j keys were there to help you position your hands for typing but I do now. The bbc exercises were a good introduction if you can get past all the singing animals and I worked through all twelve exercises this morning.

I've now moved onto another website where I'm trying to improve my speed and my accuracy. I've not done much on there yet. I'm currently up to level 3 with a speed of 25 wpm and 99% accuracy. Not a great improvement in speed but I've managed to improve my speed in a day and I'm more accurate. Plus that is now a proper touch typing speed rather than me scanning the keyboard all the time. Hopefully if I keep working through the brown bear exercises I'll improve my speed and get to the stage where I can do a proper typing course - after that these updates will be a doddle :-)

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