Typing Test Tech Tip

For this tech tip, I tried two typing tests. The first was the Rank My Typing website and the second the Fast Fingers website.

While they were both typing tests with similar processes, I found it interesting how big of a difference the minor changes made.

In the first test I scored 51 wpm. In the second I scored 57 wpm. Both had about two words wrong.

In the first test, I was typing complete sentences. I thought that this was great because it is very similar to how we type in the real world with capitalization and punctuation.

However, the second test was just random words listed one after another. I did not like this so much because it isn't like we actually type when writing. That being said, I think that that is why I scored higher on the second test. There was no capitalization, or punctuation. Also, instead of looking at the sentence as a whole for meaning, when you just have random words strung together it is much easier to focus solely on those words. Therefore, I think that the first test was actually much more accurate for my overall typing abilities. Also the first website seemed cleaner, with less ads pasted all over the place. I also liked that the first site ranked you with the demographics you chose.

That being said, there were a couple of things I liked better about the second website. The first was that it gave you your percentile compared to everyone else who had used their website in the last 24 hours. I thought that was unique and interesting to see. Next, you could easily change languages, which I think could be interesting to try, although I didn't this time. The last thing that I liked better about the second website is that they start the timer whenever you begin typing. I liked being able to look over the website without the countdown of when the timer would start for the test.