
- 22 Jul, 2021
The full form of WPM is words per minute which is a measurement method to calculate typing speed of a person.
The word per minute method is used to measure words processed in a minute.
These words per minute systems are often used as a calculation method of the speed of typing, Morse code sending and receiving and reading etc.
About WPM
WPM or words per minute is an important metric to measure the typing speed of an individual’s especially for professional purposes such as job skill tests in the related posts.
WPS or words per minute work like a measure of the output speed on the keyboard of the computer. However, the word per minute measurement can also be used to measure typing speed for mobile phone typing.
WPM work process
· First begin a timer and set it for one minute
· Start the timer for one minute and start typing
· Once the times up stop typing
· Count how many characters you have typed that includes everything such as spaces and punctuations.
· Now you have got characters you typed in one minute, divide this number by 5
· It is divided 5 because the WPM or word per minute system accepts a word is 5 keystrokes.
· Now the result you got is the WPM or word per minute number for your typing speed.
To understand this process let’s take an instance –
· If you have typed “Hello world. It is a nice day”. And you took one minute to type this whole text.
· Now here is how you can get your WPM or word per minute speed –
· As “Hello world. It is a nice day”. Contains 30 characters.
· To get the WPM we use this formula as mentioned – 30/5 = 6 words
· So you got 6 words as result.
· This 6 words is your WPM or words per minute number which indicates your typing speed.
On the other hand, if you typed the same sentence or these 30 characters in 30 seconds then your typing speed would be 6*60/30 = 12 Words per minute
The typing speed for an average professional can be from 50 words per minute to 70 words per minute.
Other uses of WPM
Despite typing this words per minute method is also used in other sectors to measure the speed wherever words or characters are used. Here are other uses of Words per minute –
The speed of copying text in writing is known as WPM in handwriting. The average speed of copying letters is 40 letters per minute which is 13 words per minute for any adult age range 18-60 years old.
WPM in Reading and comprehension
WPM is used in the context of remedial skills evaluation and in the context of speed reading whenever there is a need for a controversial measure of reading performance.
The Word per minute system in reading depends on the language and a lot of the other factors. However, according to studies people are able to read English at 200 words per minute of speed on paper and 180 words per minute on a computer monitor.