UPMSP Shorthand & Typewriting flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Gross speed formula

Gross words per minute equals total words typed divided by minutes elapsed, where one word is standardised as five characters including spaces.

Net speed with errors

Net speed subtracts a penalty for errors from gross speed; the common manual-typewriting rule deducts ten words for each error from the total words typed.

What counts as a typing error

A wrong, omitted or extra character, a transposition of two characters, and a word run together or wrongly spaced all count as one error each.

Touch typing posture

Feet flat, elbows close to the body, wrists not resting on the machine, and eyes on the copy rather than the keyboard support sustained speed.

Five-character word standard

Typing speed treats every five characters, including spaces and punctuation, as one word regardless of actual word length in the copy.

Carriage return in manual typing

On a manual typewriter the carriage return and line spacing are part of the timed operation, so slow returns reduce net speed.

Pitman stroke thickness

In Pitman shorthand light strokes are voiceless consonants such as p, t, k, f, s, while heavy strokes are their voiced counterparts b, d, g, v, z.

Pitman three vowel places

First-place vowels are written at the start of a stroke, second-place at the middle, third-place at the end, distinguishing vowel sounds by position.

Pitman long vowel dots and dashes

Dots and dashes at the three vowel places give six long vowels: ah and a, e and ay, i and oi, in first, second and third places.

Gregg stroke length pairs

In Gregg shorthand, stroke length distinguishes pairs such as t and d, k and g, r and l, with the longer stroke representing the voiced sound.

Phrasing in shorthand

Phrasing joins two or more outlines without lifting the pen, so common combinations such as 'to be' and 'in the' are written as one outline.

Brief forms

Brief forms are fixed abbreviations for high-frequency words; they must be memorised exactly because a changed outline becomes a different word.

Shorthand position in Pitman

Pitman is written on three-line paper; first position is above the line, second on the line, and third through the line, fixing outline placement.

Dictation speed calculation

Dictation speed equals total dictated words divided by elapsed minutes, so missed words lower both the recorded speed and the accuracy percentage.

Transcription accuracy formula

Transcription accuracy equals correct words divided by total dictated words, multiplied by one hundred, and is usually reported as a percentage.

Omission and repetition errors

A dictated word left out of the transcription is an omission error; a word written twice is a repetition error, and both are penalised like wrong words.

Reading back before transcription

Before starting to transcribe, read the shorthand outline through once and insert dictated punctuation and paragraph marks; this reduces errors substantially.

Dictated punctuation

Punctuation marks spoken during dictation, such as full stop, comma, hyphen and paragraph, must appear in the transcription or each omission counts as an error.

Figures during dictation

Numbers, figures and proper nouns should be written directly in digits or longhand during dictation rather than reconstructed from memory afterwards.

Block letter format

In block format every line, including date, inside address, salutation, body, close and signature, begins at the left margin with no indentation.

Modified block format

Modified block keeps the body at the left margin but starts the date, complimentary close and signature block at the centre or a set indentation.

Paragraph spacing in letters

Business letters use single spacing within a paragraph and one blank line between paragraphs, with a five-space first-line indent in indented format.

Envelope address placement

On a standard envelope the address block sits about four inches from the left edge and two inches from the top, in block form without end punctuation.

Stet proofreading mark

Stet is a proofreading mark meaning let it stand; it cancels a correction and restores the original typed text unchanged.

Table alignment rules

Column headings are centred over their columns, figures are right-aligned, text is left-aligned, and the table title is centred in capitals above the table.

Subject-verb agreement

A singular subject takes a singular verb; collective nouns take a singular verb when acting as one unit and a plural verb when members act separately.

Article a versus an

Use 'a' before a consonant sound and 'an' before a vowel sound, so 'an hour' and 'a university' follow sound rather than spelling.

Present perfect tense use

The present perfect, formed with has or have plus the past participle, describes a past action that still has relevance to the present.

Since versus for

Use 'since' with a point in time, as in since 2019, and 'for' with a duration, as in for three years, when expressing time.

Hindi postpositions

Hindi postpositions such as में, पर, से and को follow the noun, and case marking changes pronoun forms, giving मैंने, मुझे and मेरा.

Hindi nukta use

The nukta marks Perso-Arabic sounds such as क़, ख़, ग़, ज़ and फ़; omitting or adding it changes the word and counts as a spelling error.

UPMSP headquarters and role

The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad, based at Prayagraj, conducts the state High School and Intermediate board examinations.

UP districts and divisions

Uttar Pradesh has seventy-five districts grouped into eighteen divisions, with Lucknow as capital and Kanpur as its largest city by population.

National emblem source

The national emblem is the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath, near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, adopted on 26 January 1950.