Short typing practice texts — a paragraph each

#	Text	Year	Words	Letters / word	At 40 WPM	Going
1	Common Sense Thomas Paine	1776	56	4.4	93 s	demanding
2	Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe	1852	51	4.9	95 s	demanding
3	The Enchanted April Elizabeth von Arnim	1922	69	4.3	112 s	gentle
4	Persuasion Jane Austen	1817	70	4.6	124 s	demanding
5	Little Women Louisa May Alcott	1868	94	4.4	159 s	demanding
6	The Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln	1863	105	4.2	169 s	gentle
7	Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe	1719	103	4.3	171 s	demanding
8	Main Street Sinclair Lewis	1920	100	4.5	171 s	ordinary
9	Oliver Twist Charles Dickens	1838	95	4.9	172 s	ordinary
10	Howards End E. M. Forster	1910	107	4.0	173 s	demanding
11	Around the World in Eighty Days Jules Verne	1872	101	4.5	176 s	demanding
12	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll	1865	112	4.1	178 s	gentle
13	The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane	1895	107	4.5	182 s	gentle
14	The Prisoner of Zenda Anthony Hope	1894	103	4.4	182 s	demanding
15	The Woman in White Wilkie Collins	1859	111	4.3	182 s	ordinary
16	A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens	1859	118	4.0	184 s	gentle
17	Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen	1813	118	4.0	184 s	ordinary
18	A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce	1916	122	3.9	185 s	gentle
19	The Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson	1776	106	4.7	185 s	demanding
20	The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan	1915	116	4.2	186 s	ordinary
21	The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas	1844	109	4.6	187 s	ordinary
22	Dracula Bram Stoker	1897	117	4.1	187 s	demanding
23	My Antonia Willa Cather	1918	122	4.1	191 s	ordinary
24	Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs	1912	116	4.4	192 s	gentle

Sorted by length, shortest first. At 40 WPM the shortest of them takes 93 seconds and the longest 192. The full list of 111 texts is on the practice texts page.

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Typing test
Gross and net WPM, accuracy and keystrokes per hour — the figures typing exams use, at eight lengths from 15 seconds to 15 minutes.
Typing lessons
Fifteen short lessons, two new keys at a time, with the keyboard showing which finger goes where.
Key drills
A drill for each row, hand, finger and kind of character — and how much of English prose each set of keys actually carries.
Every key
One page per key: the finger that owns it, how often it is really pressed, and the letter pairs it lives in.
Typing speed
What a speed means in characters, keystrokes per hour and minutes per page — and a test paced to the number you are aiming at.
Weak keys
A drill built from the keys you miss most, worked out from your own tests.
Times tables
Each table with its patterns, a drill that returns to what you got wrong, and a 60-second speed test.

Other shortlists

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Typing test

Typing lessons

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Every key

Typing speed

Weak keys

Times tables