60
seconds
A metronome ticks once per word, and the aim is to finish each word on the click. Sixty seconds of it is a good way to teach your hands a steady rhythm.
A metronome clicks once per word at the tempo you choose. Type the word and press Space on the click. A word finished inside the window counts as on-beat, and the window is roughly a quarter of a beat either side. The run lasts sixty seconds.
The tempo counts real words, one per click, not five-character words. At 60 there is a click every second; at 30, one every two seconds.
The options row offers auto, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 100. Auto sets about 80% of your best speed.
| Tempo | One click every | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 2 seconds | First tries, learning to wait for the beat |
| 50 | 1.2 seconds | Comfortable practice for most typists |
| 70 | about 0.86 seconds | Confident typists |
| 100 | 0.6 seconds | Fast typists who want a real test |
Score is on-beat words × tempo ÷ 10, rounded. The results also show how many words landed on the beat out of all you typed, as a hit rate. A high hit rate at a lower tempo is worth more than a messy run at a high one. Once your hit rate passes 70%, the results suggest raising the tempo by ten.
It trains rhythm. Most typists speed up on easy words and stall on hard ones, which shows up as a low consistency score in normal tests. Tempo makes you type the easy words at the same pace as the hard ones. That evenness carries over to normal typing, where it shows up as fewer rushed errors and fewer stalls.
Want speed pressure instead of rhythm? Treadmill chases you with a pace line. To see how even your typing is in a normal run, check the consistency score on the 2 minute typing test.
Each word you finish on the beat counts. Your score is the number of on-beat words multiplied by the tempo, divided by ten. So 40 on-beat words at 60 scores 240, and faster tempos are worth more per word.
Auto picks about 80% of your best speed, rounded to the nearest 5, or 40 if you have no record yet. If rhythm typing is new to you, start lower than that. You can also pick a fixed tempo from 30 to 100.
It is generous: roughly a quarter of a beat either side of the click. At a tempo of 60, that is about a quarter of a second each way.