RBSE SS English Typewriting common mistakes
RBSE SS English Typewriting · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Typing the passage continuously without ever glancing at the clock, so the candidate runs out of time with several lines untyped or rushes the last paragraph at double speed and destroys accuracy.
Nervousness at the start of the test pushes attention entirely onto the copy, and the candidate has no internal pace reference because practice was always untimed or timed only at the end.
What to do instead
In practice, do timed 10-minute runs and note the line number reached at each 2-minute mark; build a personal checkpoint plan (for example, a target line count every 2 minutes) and glance at the clock only at those checkpoints so rhythm is not broken.
Sacrificing accuracy for speed: the candidate races to finish the passage and leaves a trail of wrong letters and dropped words, losing more marks to errors than the extra speed gains.
Candidates believe speed is the only scored dimension and do not know how heavily errors are penalised in the marking scheme, so they deliberately push past their controllable rate.
What to do instead
Establish a personal accuracy-first speed (the rate at which errors stay near zero) and only raise it after a full week at that rate with clean output; in the exam, type at that trained rate and let the clock, not panic, set the pace.
Failing to mark or count errors correctly: the candidate either ignores errors entirely or marks them in the wrong place, in the wrong form, or after erasing without leaving a legible record.
The error-marking convention was never practised as a separate drill, so under pressure the candidate improvises and produces marks the examiner cannot interpret.
What to do instead
Drill the exact marking convention on short passages until it is automatic: mark each error at the point it occurs, in the prescribed manner, and keep a running count; verify the count against the passage before submitting.
Looking at the keyboard while typing, which forces repeated head movement between copy and keys and causes duplicated, transposed and omitted letters at speed.
The candidate learned to type by sight and never completed the touch-typing transition, so the home-row anchor is not reliable and the eyes are needed to find keys.
What to do instead
Return to blind drills: cover the hands, type letter and word drills from the home row outward for short daily sessions, and only reintroduce full passages once the fingers find keys without visual confirmation.
Collapsing posture and hand position mid-test: wrists resting on the desk, elbows splayed, shoulders hunched, causing fatigue and slowing the final minutes of a long passage.
No attention was paid to workstation setup in practice, and tension from exam stress pulls the hands into a braced position that restricts finger movement.
What to do instead
Set the chair height and copy position before starting, keep wrists floating and forearms roughly level, and do a deliberate relaxation check at each 2-minute checkpoint; practise full-length passages in the same posture to build endurance.
Mishandling punctuation and capitalization from the printed copy: missing full stops and commas, ignoring quotation marks and apostrophes, and failing to capitalize after a full stop or for proper nouns.
The candidate reads for meaning rather than character by character, and punctuation keys are the least drilled part of the keyboard, so the eye skips them and the fingers do not reach them cleanly.
What to do instead
Practise passages deliberately loaded with punctuation, typing each mark as a distinct keystroke with its own rhythm; read the copy in short chunks and say the punctuation silently as it is typed.
Spacing errors around punctuation and between words: double spaces after full stops where single is required, no space after commas, spaces before punctuation, and inconsistent word gaps.
Habit from other typing contexts conflicts with the required convention, and the space bar is struck with an uncontrolled thumb that sometimes registers twice or not at all.
What to do instead
Fix the required spacing rule set in writing, drill it on short sentences, and use a consistent single-thumb space stroke; proofread specifically for spacing at the end of each paragraph rather than at the end of the whole passage.
Losing margin and paragraph control: paragraphs not indented or indented inconsistently, lines running past the right margin, and the carriage or line feed handled so text overlaps or leaves uneven gaps.
The candidate focuses on words and never rehearses the mechanical line-control actions, so margin and paragraph decisions are made late and inconsistently.
What to do instead
Rehearse the full mechanical sequence on blank paper first: set margins, use the prescribed indent, and practise the carriage return or line feed at the margin until it is one smooth motion; then apply it to full passages under timing.
Stumbling on numerals, symbols and special characters: reaching for the top row by sight, producing wrong digits, and missing characters such as ampersands, dashes, brackets and currency signs.
Number and symbol rows are rarely drilled, shift-key coordination is weak, and the candidate has no consistent finger assignment for these keys.
What to do instead
Run dedicated drills on the number row and shifted symbols with the correct fingers, including mixed alphanumeric strings; then type passages containing dates, amounts and abbreviations until the reach is automatic.
Poor exam-hall procedure and machine handling: arriving without checking the machine, discovering a sticky key or wrong ribbon mid-test, wasting minutes on setup, and losing time to avoidable interruptions.
The candidate treated the exam as purely a typing test and never rehearsed the administrative and mechanical routine, so every small problem becomes a time loss under stress.
What to do instead
Rehearse the full hall routine in practice: check the machine, ribbon, paper feed and margins before the start signal, know the procedure for reporting a fault, and keep a spare moment budgeted so a fault does not consume typing time.