RRB NTPC typing test practice

What the RRB instructions say

The figures below come from the Railway Recruitment Boards' own documents: the special instructions for the CBTST under CEN 06/2024 (NTPC undergraduate posts) and an older RRB Kolkata typing-test sheet that sets the same speeds.

The test is commonly described as qualifying. Notifications differ between recruitment cycles (CEN numbers), including the posts that need the test and the Hindi fonts allowed, so read the instructions issued with your own call letter. This site is independent of the RRBs and doesn't copy their error rules.

The minimum word count is the line to watch

Most practice advice talks about 30 WPM. The rule that catches people is the minimum: fewer than 300 English words or 250 Hindi words, and your transcript isn't marked at all.

How hard that is depends on how words are counted, and the board's documents are the authority on that. Two ways to look at it:

• If you think in standard WPM (five characters per word, spaces included), 30 WPM for ten minutes is 1,500 characters.
• If the 300 are counted as actual words of the passage, the characters needed depend on word length. English words in our list average 5.08 letters, about 6.08 with the space, so 300 words of that length is roughly 1,800 characters, or about 36 WPM on our scale.

For Hindi, our list averages 4.22 Unicode characters per word, so 250 everyday Hindi words is about 1,300 characters, roughly 26 WPM. Exam passages use longer words than everyday speech, which pushes both numbers up.

The practical answer: aim well above the stated speed. If you can hold 36 net WPM in English or 28 in Hindi here for ten minutes, you've covered the speed and the word count under either reading. The metrics page explains how our WPM is computed.

Typing without editing tools

The CBTST instructions say editing tools for correcting mistakes aren't permitted. The safest way to prepare is to assume you won't be able to go back and fix things.

Our test allows backspace, but you don't have to use it. Try a few runs where you simply keep typing after a mistake. Two things happen: your raw speed goes up, and your accuracy figure shows you honestly how many wrong keys you press. Accuracy here counts every wrong keypress, even ones you correct, so it already reflects what an uncorrected transcript would look like.

The older RRB Kolkata sheet lists the kinds of mistakes examiners look for, including spacing, punctuation, capitalisation, paragraphing and transposed letters. Plain word tests won't train all of that. Turn punctuation on for some runs, or use the punctuation test and quotes, so capitals and full stops become automatic.

Using the one-minute warm-up

The CEN 06/2024 instructions give you one minute of practice before the real test, then a five-minute gap. Rehearse that: run a 60-second test, wait, then go straight into the ten-minute test without another warm-up. If your first minute in the long test is much slower than your warm-up, you know you need a better start routine, such as typing the first line slightly slower to settle in.

Two weeks before the test

If your typing is already near the line, two focused weeks are enough to make it reliable.

In the first week, do one ten-minute run every day and record net WPM, accuracy and roughly how many words you produced. Spend the rest of the session on 60-second tests aimed at the most-missed keys the results screen lists, and drill those in practice.

In the second week, rehearse the real session: 60-second warm-up, a short break, then ten minutes without backspace. Do it at the same time of day as your slot if you know it. By the end, your worst run of the week should still clear the speed and the minimum word count with a few words to spare. If it doesn't, keep the same routine rather than trying to type harder.

English or Hindi?

Choose the language with the bigger margin, not the lower bar. Run the ten-minute English test here and the 10-minute Hindi test on the same day and compare net WPM against 30 and 25. If you type Hindi only occasionally, English may be the safer choice even with the higher bar.

For Hindi, the test reads whatever your operating system types, so set a Unicode Hindi input first (Inscript, Remington GAIL in Unicode, or phonetic). Kruti Dev is a legacy non-Unicode font and its output won't match the test text. Check your call letter or notification for the Hindi input and font the exam allows.