Accuracy
This domain tests the proportion of your typing that is correct and whether you can hold accuracy while maintaining speed. In typewriting assessment, neatness does not rescue a wrong word: the examiner counts faults against the copy.
What is measured
- Accuracy is commonly correct words ÷ total words, expressed as a percentage; it can also be reported as errors per 100 words.
- Faults include wrong letters, omitted letters, added letters, transpositions, wrong spacing, wrong punctuation and wrong capitalization.
- A corrected fault may still consume time, and some rubrics still count it; never assume correction erases the error.
Control habits
- Type at a rate where you can feel each key bottom out; skimming produces omissions.
- Keep your eyes on the copy, not the keyboard, and check phrases rather than single letters.
- Slow down at word endings, double letters and lookalike words such as form/from and clerk/clear.
Worked example
A candidate types 240 words in 8 minutes with 12 errors. Gross speed is 240 ÷ 8 = 30 wpm; net speed is (240 − 12) ÷ 8 = 28.5 wpm. Accuracy is 228 ÷ 240 = 95%. If the requirement is 95%, this is borderline. Reducing errors to 6 gives accuracy of 234 ÷ 240 = 97.5% and net speed of (240 − 6) ÷ 8 = 29.25 wpm. The reasoning: fewer errors raise both the accuracy percentage and the net word count without any increase in typing speed.
Traps
- Treating a corrected error as free.
- Ignoring spacing faults because the words themselves are right.
- Increasing speed after a clean first line and losing control.