How typing speed is scored in government exams comes down to two things: your words-per-minute and your accuracy, both measured against exam-specific cutoffs that vary by SSC, Railway, and Banking recruitment bodies.

Gross WPM: the “everything counts” number

This one’s simple: it just counts every word you typed, mistakes and all, divided by your time. Type 250 words in 5 minutes and boom, your Gross WPM is 50 even if half of those words were wrong. Nice to look at, but honestly? It won’t tell you much about whether you’d actually pass an exam.

Net WPM: the honest one

This is where your mistakes actually start to matter. Net WPM takes your total words, subtracts your errors, then divides by time: (words typed − errors) ÷ minutes. This is much closer to your real typing ability, and it’s usually what people mean when they casually say “my WPM.”

SSC-convention: the one your exam result is actually built on

Here’s the part that almost nobody explains properly. SSC (and most government exam boards that follow the same rules) don’t just use your raw Net WPM. They’re a little forgiving they let you make a small number of mistakes, usually around 5% of your words, before anything even gets subtracted. Slip up less than that, and it barely touches your score.

That’s exactly why we show you an “SSC convention WPM” as its own number. It’s the one that lines up most closely with your real exam result, and it’ll usually sit a little higher than your strict Net WPM. If you’re prepping for a specific exam, this is the number to keep an eye on not Gross, not even strict Net.

So what should you actually do with this?

Don’t just type fast and messy to chase a big Gross WPM it won’t get you anywhere. And don’t obsess over zero mistakes either, since most exams also expect a minimum speed. The people who pass consistently are the ones who find a pace where their SSC convention score keeps climbing fast enough to matter, clean enough that a small slip here and there doesn’t hurt them.

Every test you take here shows all three numbers side by side, right after you finish so you can watch the one that actually matters for your exam, instead of just the one that looks the most impressive.