10-Key Test: Check Your Ten-Key Speed in KPH

How the 10-key test works

Each row is one record from a stack of invoices: a six-digit invoice number, a five-digit ZIP code (some start with 0), a quantity and an amount with cents. Type each value into the field under it on the numeric keypad and press Enter or Tab to move to the next field; the last field of a row moves you to the next record. Everything uses only keypad keys, the digits and the decimal point, so your hand never leaves the pad. The clock starts with your first key, not when the page opens.

Pick the length that matches your goal: 1 minute for a quick check, 3 or 5 minutes for a steadier reading that shows whether your speed holds up, or 20 entries (five records) to finish a fixed batch as fast and cleanly as you can. That last one is the shape of Criteria's Ten Key Test, which has 20 entries and reports keystrokes per hour and the number of correct fields. Letters + numbers swaps in customer names and street addresses, the mixed fields of a general data entry test. To fix a digit, press Backspace on the main keyboard; Shift + Tab goes back a field within the row.

Reading your result

• Net KPH, the big number, counts the keystrokes of entries you got exactly right (their characters plus the Enter or Tab after each), scaled to an hour. This is the figure postings usually mean by net or corrected keystrokes.
• Gross KPH counts every character key and every Enter or Tab you pressed, including characters you deleted. A big gap between gross and net means mistakes are costing you more than speed is earning.
• Accuracy is the share of entries typed exactly as shown. One wrong digit makes the whole entry wrong, as it would in an accounts system.
• Where the mistakes were: the small keypad shows, for each key, how many times you missed it out of how many times it came up, and turns amber or red where you slipped. The table counts wrong entries per field, and the list under it shows what you typed against what was shown.

The result also says how you entered the digits. If they came from the top row of the keyboard or a touch screen, it tells you that this wasn't a real 10-key test: the speed is measured the same way, but employers test the keypad.

What employers and courses ask for

Your result marks each of these as met or not yet, using the same rounded numbers it shows you. A requirement with an accuracy floor counts as met only when both the speed and the accuracy reach it. For forms that ask for words per minute, the result also shows Net WPM: net KPH divided by 300, because a word counts as five keystrokes. 6,000 KPH is 20 WPM and 8,000 KPH about 27 WPM.

With Letters + numbers, names and addresses go into their own fields, and the result checks your net KPH and accuracy against two mixed-entry bars instead: 5,000 KPH at 85% or better (a 2018 County of Orange posting) and 7,000 KPH at 90% or better (a 2017 State of Hawaii posting, which allowed up to 10% errors). If your test types whole invoices, receipts and timesheets as running text rather than separate fields, practice on the data entry typing test, which scores each record in KPH and WPM.

Getting faster on the keypad

The keypad has its own home row: 4, 5 and 6, with your middle finger on 5, which usually has a raised bump. In the three-finger method of CAERT's lesson The Touch Method for Numeric Keypads, the index finger takes 0, 1, 4 and 7, the middle finger the decimal point, 2, 5 and 8, and the ring finger 3, 6, 9 and Enter. Keep your eyes on the record, not the keys: looking down and back costs more time than any slow finger. Practice accuracy first, since one wrong digit wipes out the whole entry, then push the speed with the 3- and 5-minute runs.

If Num Lock is off, the keypad sends arrows and Home/End instead of digits; the page notices, lights the Num Lock key red and tells you. If a key doesn't respond at all, check it in the keyboard tester. For typing speed on words rather than numbers, take the typing test or the civil-service style 5-minute typing test.