

Typeracer – Improve/test typing speed via online typing races - birken
http://play.typeracer.com/

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kanzure
I ranked top 30 on typeracer at least once[1]. Here's one of the tricks:
there's usually a countdown before each race starts, and anyone who cares
about gaming the "words per minute" measurement will just paste the first word
when the race begins.

Naturally, the other trick is to type really, really fast. This comes in handy
when taking transcripts at events or meetings[2], but not often for anything
else.

[1]
[http://www.seanwrona.com/typeracer/leaders.php](http://www.seanwrona.com/typeracer/leaders.php)

[2] [http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/)

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edgeztv
Easter egg for hackers:
[http://play.typeracer.com/?universe=code](http://play.typeracer.com/?universe=code)
(I'm the founder/developer of this site) Glad to see fellow HNers enjoying my
creation!

~~~
xb95
Woah, typing code at speed is incredibly difficult. I don't know if it picks
languages randomly but it gave me Lisp just now, and... ack!

Unrelated, TypeRacer is amazing. We had a bunch of contests at my last job and
they ended up making a trophy because I was the King of Speed. It was pretty
fun. So, thank you!

~~~
edgeztv
You're welcome, and congrats on winning a trophy - that's pretty cool! Thanks
for your comment!

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CodeCube
I really enjoy typing fast (at least, faster than average) :)
[http://imgur.com/AUovDJq](http://imgur.com/AUovDJq)

I was fresh out of high school, and already doing small freelance web
contracts for friends and family's businesses ... my first semi-technical job
(other than the aforementioned contracts) was as a phone support person and I
knew I was going to have to do a lot of typing; but I'd never been very good
at touch typing. So I popped up notepad, and resolved to type everything that
our trainer said for the week (or however long the training period was, I
forget).

Best investment ever, considering this line of work :)

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emgeee
Oh hey, I got bored one day and decided to write a console script to achieve
any WPM you want, a gist can be found here:
[https://gist.github.com/emgeee/9dfa0ac113f933afda0b](https://gist.github.com/emgeee/9dfa0ac113f933afda0b)

As others have mentioned, if you get above 100 WPM they make you do a captcha
test to form your AREN'T scripting it, which I can't beat but it was a fun
exercise none the less.

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agumonkey
unshameful plug : for local console, use gnu typist
[http://www.gnu.org/s/gtypist](http://www.gnu.org/s/gtypist) (had good results
with it)

~~~
Bootvis
Seconded, got me from shit to good.

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rrss1122
I don't think it will necessarily improve typing speed, but it is definitely a
good test. I suggest you supplement Typeracer with a touch typing tutor app.
My favorite is klavaro
([http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/en/](http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/en/)).

~~~
demallien
For what it's worth, I used type racer to learn to touchtype. Took me from
about 25 wpm to about 65 wpm. I seem to have plateaued there though - I
actually type at around 90, but with mistakes. The game doesn't seem like a
good tool for shaking out the mistakes.

Another problem is that it doesn't teach you all the weird punctuation we use
as programmers - I still look at my keyboard when typing code, which I don't
have to do fit normal text...

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justizin
Hm, I was able to get 104 and 111wpm, but I find the new UI to typeracer
incredibly distracting. I have clocked in multiple times on multiple tests at
137wpm.

It's just very visually distracting for the words to disapper as I type them,
and when I scored over 100wpm on a race, I had to take a 'test' to prove that
I could do it, and on the test the UI was not all crazy, and I got 111wpm with
some mistakes, including having to hit tab and enter to end the test.

~~~
justizin
Seriously, it's my ceiling:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nhtggwgr47g1r7/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nhtggwgr47g1r7/Screenshot%202014-06-20%2013.18.00.png)

This was a typing test, where I again scored higher than in the race (I got
123), since the UI is wierd and I can't focus the text field before typing,
it's hard to know how not to mess up.

I guess if you type 60wpm those details don't impact you as much.

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wukkuan
Pretty fun game!

I had one issue though. I managed to type 129wpm in one round (I normally type
around 105-110, this particular paragraph was easy). It told me to be allowed
to use this score I had to prove I could type 117wpm on an obfuscated (think
captcha) document. I was not able to do that. It's a good idea, in theory.
Maybe if I'd tried a few more times I could have gotten it up there.

~~~
gamegoblin
I don't know if everyone has to, but my captcha document was from Alice in
Wonderland or something, which already had some strange punctuation and
capitalization, but the random black lines covered up some of the punctuation
and I took too much time trying to figure out what they were rather than just
skipping them and taking the accuracy hit.

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AdamFort
BTW, do you know that average typing speed for adults is just 41 words per
minute. Source - [http://www.ratatype.com/learn/average-typing-
speed/](http://www.ratatype.com/learn/average-typing-speed/)

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emeraldd
I'm stuck bouncing between 55~70 words a minute. My fingers keep tripping over
themselves!

~~~
noir_lord
You might find it surprising how much of a difference the keyboard can make,
on my mechanical keyboards I'm consistently around 90 on my Ergonomic
keyboards nearer 70.

I'll take the hit not to have the wrist pain though!.

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Glyptodon
Like the idea but the page and line layout is problematic. I think at a
minimum the text areas should be larger and it should eat a whole line at a
time instead of a single word. Somehow I completely lose my place every time I
make a mistake.

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kremlin
It probably helps having a premium mechanical keyboard. Fun stuff.

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soyiuz
Gah. My wife got 120wpm her first try. WTH super woman.

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malkia
67 wpm :)

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knicholes
148! ;)

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jtth
Reckful rank 1

