15-minute typing test

Who needs a 15-minute test

Transcription, captioning and some data entry roles involve hours of continuous typing, and a few employers test for longer than the usual five minutes. A 15-minute test shows how your speed and accuracy hold up when the novelty of a short test wears off. It also uses real passages with capitals and punctuation rather than a word list.

Reading your result

The result splits the test into three parts. A drop of 10% or more in the last part usually means fatigue or a start that was too fast; a flat line means you paced it well. Consistency, shown as a percentage, tells you how even your speed was minute to minute.

Before you start, check your posture and desk setup: over fifteen minutes, a tense shoulder or a bent wrist costs real speed.

How the score is calculated

A "word" is five characters, spaces and punctuation included. Net WPM is your gross speed minus one word per minute for every error you leave uncorrected, and accuracy is the share of all your keystrokes that were right, including mistakes you fixed. The timer starts on your first key. Read the full formulas.