Typing test · 5 minutes 5-minute typing test
Five minutes is several passages in a row, long enough for tiredness and lapses in focus to show. It is the setting to use when you want a figure that reflects a working session.
- English and Chinese (pinyin, wubi, any IME)
- Customer-service reply passages
- Results stay on your device
Type for five minutes
Passages follow one another automatically. With a screen reader you hear the time left once a minute and again at ten seconds.
Time left
5:00
Speed · WPM
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Accuracy
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The morning train was quiet except for the sound of pages turning. A woman near the door was reading a map of the city, tracing the river with one finger, as if she wanted to remember every bridge before she crossed it.
Next: Bread dough needs time more than it needs skill. Mix the flour, water, salt and yeast, then leave it alone for a few hours. The yeast does the slow work while you do something else, and the kitchen starts to smell warm.
Esc restarts the same passage. Enter and paste are turned off. For Chinese, type with your usual input method: only characters you commit are counted, not the pinyin letters.
Send this link to your team. Everyone who opens it gets the same passages in the same order and the same duration. Results are not uploaded: each person copies their result line and pastes it into a shared spreadsheet.
Your result
Sample58
WPM
Accuracy
92.9%
Raw speed
60
Errors left
10
Corrected
12
Correct / typed
290 / 300
Duration
5 min
Sample result. Finish a test to see yours.
Characters you missed most
- Expected character → what you typed, with a count.
- 58 WPM 92.9% 10 300 - -
Only used in the result line and on your score card. It is saved in this browser so you do not have to retype it, and never sent to TapCub.
Recent tests on this device
| When | Setup | Speed | Accuracy |
|---|
Version v1.0Updated Update history
What each number on the result card means
Speed and accuracy pull against each other. Read them together, and compare only with tests of the same language, passage set and duration.
Speed (net WPM)
Correct characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes. Mistakes you leave in do not count, so this is the figure to compare over time. For Chinese the unit is characters per minute instead of words.
Raw speed
Everything you typed ÷ 5 ÷ minutes, mistakes included. A big gap between raw and net speed means you are typing faster than you can type accurately.
Accuracy
Correct entries ÷ all entries. A mistake you fixed with Backspace still counts against accuracy, because it still cost you time. "Errors left" shows what remained at the end.
Characters you missed most
Each chip shows the character the text asked for, what you typed instead most often, and how many times. Repeated pairs (e and r, or a missed space) are the keys worth a few minutes of practice.
For context, a 2018 study of 168,000 volunteers who typed English sentences online found an average of 52 WPM; the fastest typed about 120 WPM (Dhakal et al., CHI 2018, University of Cambridge and Aalto University). Volunteers chose to take part, so treat this as a rough reference, not a standard. We know of no comparable public study for Chinese input.
Four steps to a fair result
One minute is enough for a quick check. Two or five minutes say more about how you type over a real shift.
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1
Choose the setup
Language, passage set and duration. Customer-service passages are chat replies: greetings, order status, refunds, delays, apologies and closings.
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2
Start typing
Click the box and type what you see. The clock starts on your first keystroke, not when the page loads.
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3
Keep going
Fix mistakes if you like, or carry on. When a passage ends the next one appears; the test stops when the time is up.
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4
Read and keep the result
Check your weak keys, download the score card, or copy the result line into your team’s sheet. Your recent tests stay in this browser.
How speed and accuracy are calculated
The standard typing-test convention counts a "word" as five characters, spaces and punctuation included, so long and short words are treated fairly. Chinese is counted per character.
- Net WPM = correct characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes (characters still correct when time runs out)
- Raw WPM = all typed characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes
- Accuracy = correct entries ÷ all entries; Backspace does not erase a mistake from the count
- Chinese: characters per minute = correct committed characters ÷ minutes; pinyin letters in the input method are not counted
- Full-width and half-width punctuation (，and ,) and curly and straight quotes count as the same character
Net speed (WPM)
WPM = correct characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes
Sample: 290 correct characters in 1 minute → 290 ÷ 5 ÷ 1 = 58 WPM
Raw speed
Raw WPM = typed characters ÷ 5 ÷ minutes
Sample: 300 characters typed → 300 ÷ 5 ÷ 1 = 60 WPM
Accuracy
Accuracy = (entries − wrong entries) ÷ entries
Sample: 312 entries, 22 wrong → 290 ÷ 312 = 92.9%
Chinese speed
chars/min = correct committed characters ÷ minutes
Sample: 72 correct characters in 1 minute → 72 chars/min
A 30-second test, calculated by hand
Half a minute is 0.5 in the formulas. Everything below comes from the counts the test keeps while you type.
| Measure | Count or result | How it is worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Characters entered | 150 | Every character you typed, including ones you later deleted |
| Wrong entries | 17 | Characters that did not match the text when you typed them |
| Characters in the box at the end | 140 | What remained after your corrections |
| Correct at the end | 133 | So 7 errors were left in, and 17 − 7 = 10 were corrected |
| Net speed | 53 WPM | 133 ÷ 5 ÷ 0.5 = 53.2 |
| Raw speed | 56 WPM | 140 ÷ 5 ÷ 0.5 = 56 |
| Accuracy | 88.7% | (150 − 17) ÷ 150 = 0.887 |
Speeds are rounded to whole numbers and accuracy to one decimal place, both on screen and on the score card.
Why typing test results mislead
Most bad comparisons come from changing the conditions, not from the typist.
Chasing raw speed
Typing fast and leaving errors raises raw WPM and lowers net WPM. In real replies every mistake has to be found and fixed, so net speed and accuracy are what matter.
Comparing different setups
A 30-second sprint is faster than a 5-minute test, and chat replies with names and numbers are slower than plain prose. Compare like with like.
Autocorrect on a phone
Phone keyboards may replace whole words. The test turns autocorrect off where the browser allows, but some keyboards ignore it. Use a hardware keyboard for a fair score.
One test as a verdict
Scores vary from run to run. Take three tests and look at the middle one before drawing conclusions about yourself or a candidate.
Faster replies come from typing less, not only typing faster
Typing speed is one part of how quickly a customer gets an answer; reading the question and finding the right information take time too. TapCub live chat cuts the typing itself.
Canned replies with /
Type a slash and pick a saved answer. Placeholders such as {address} fill in from the conversation.
Learn moreAI answers first
Common questions are answered from your published knowledge base, with the source named. A person takes over when needed.
Learn moreTwo-way translation
Visitors write in their language and agents reply in theirs, with the original shown beside the translation. Included from Pro.
Learn moreTyping test questions
Still have a question?
Chat with the team behind TapCub — we usually reply within a few hours on business days.
Why is my 5-minute score lower than my 1-minute score?
That is normal. Over five minutes concentration dips, hands tire and harder passages come up. The longer test is closer to a real shift, which is why it is often used for job tests.
Do I need to stay on the page the whole time?
Yes. The clock keeps running if you switch tabs, so leaving the page counts against your speed.
Will I run out of text?
No. Passages follow one another in a shuffled order, and the order repeats only after every passage in the set has been used.
Update history
New features, fixes and data refreshes for this tool, newest first.
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· v1.0
LaunchedFirst release.
Missing something or found an error? Tell us — requests that come up often go into the next update. All tool updates
Turn typing speed into response time
Typing is one input to how fast customers hear back. Measure the rest of the reply cycle, then see how many agents a chat queue needs.