10 Minute Typing Test on A Christmas Carol

Type the passage for ten minutes; the clock starts with your first key.

Type each word and press space after it. The clock starts on your first key. MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance-- literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
More options

–This run

–Your best

–Last run

10 minutes of typing. Words per minute is correct characters divided by five; accuracy is correct keystrokes out of all keystrokes.

No runs yet. Your last ten will show up here.

Saved in this browser

Next step Half the length: five minutes on The Wind in the WillowsPunctuation slowed you? Short paragraphs to drill

How it works

This 10 minute typing test is the whole of Stave I of A Christmas Carol (1843), Marley's Ghost, cut into fourteen passages. Type in the box; when a passage ends, the next follows until ten minutes are up.

Read the full guide

What ten minutes tests

A typing test 10 minutes long is about stamina: posture, breathing and keeping your eyes on the text. Watch whether your speed holds in the second half. Typing on through a slip, instead of stopping to stare at it, keeps the pace up.

Before you start

Sit square to the keyboard, wrists level, with the screen at eye height. This is a self-test: nobody checks who typed, so it gives no certificate. If an employer set the length, ask them for the pass mark.

  • Dickens puts a comma every few words. Treat each comma as a keystroke to make, not a pause to take.

Questions and answers

Is a typing speed test for 10 minutes more accurate than a short one?

It averages over far more text, so one lucky or unlucky sentence counts for little. That makes it a steadier measure of the pace you can hold, which is usually below your one minute score.

How is the score worked out?

Correct characters divided by five, per minute, gives net words per minute, so slips you leave uncorrected do not count toward it. Accuracy shows beside it. Your best is kept in this browser only.

Why A Christmas Carol?

It was first published in 1843, so it is in the public domain in the United States, and Stave I is one scene from start to finish: Scrooge's day at the counting-house, then Marley's Ghost at night.

All 14 passages

A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave I 14

  • Dead as a Door-Nail The famous opening: Marley is dead, and the narrator stops to argue about door-nails and coffin-nails. MARLEY is printed in capitals as the first word of the book and is typed that way.
  • Tight-Fisted at the Grind-Stone A string of angry adjectives for Scrooge, then Christmas Eve, the fog and the counting-house. Commas every few words keep the rhythm broken.
  • Bah! Humbug! Scrooge's nephew arrives full of cheer and gets the book's best-known reply. Quick exchanges of speech, each opened and closed with straight quotation marks.
  • Christmas Time, When It Has Come Round The nephew's speech in defence of Christmas, the clerk's applause from the Tank and Scrooge's threat to retire to Bedlam.
  • Two Portly Gentlemen Two visitors collecting for the poor, and Scrooge's cold answers about prisons, workhouses and the surplus population. Dashes set as two hyphens break into his lines.
  • God Bless You, Merry Gentleman The gentlemen leave, the fog thickens over the city, and a boy singing through the keyhole is chased off with a ruler. The carol's lines run on here as prose.
Show all 14 passages (8 more)

A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave I, continued

  • Half-a-Crown and a Day Off Closing time: Scrooge grudges his clerk the whole of to-morrow, then goes home through the fog to his gloomy rooms.
  • The Knocker The plain door-knocker that, for a moment, is Marley's face. Long sentences built from one stated fact after another.
  • A Hearse Up the Staircase Scrooge checks every room, locks himself in and sits down to his gruel by a very low fire. The joke about a coach-and-six on the stairs opens it.
  • The Disused Bell Every bell in the house rings, a chain drags up from the cellar, and the Ghost comes through the door. The passage ends as Scrooge learns who it is.
  • An Undigested Bit of Beef Scrooge refuses to believe his own eyes and blames his dinner, until the Ghost unties its bandage. Short replies and exclamation marks come fast.
  • The Chain I Forged in Life Marley explains his chain and his seven years of travelling. Long spoken sentences with semicolons inside the speech marks.
  • Mankind Was My Business Marley's regret, and the warning that three spirits will come. The Ghost's longest speeches are here.
  • Humbug, Stopped at the First Syllable The Ghost leaves by the window among wailing phantoms, and Scrooge goes straight to bed without undressing. The end of Stave I.

How this list was compiled: Fourteen passages cut from Stave I, Marley's Ghost, of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (London: Chapman and Hall, 1843) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol). A work first published before 1931 is in the public domain in the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_in_the_United_States). The stave was split at paragraph breaks into parts under 2,800 characters, listed in reading order, so a finished passage rolls into the next. Changes to the text: hard-wrapped lines and paragraphs were joined with single spaces, and the carol sung at the keyhole runs on as prose. Quotation marks are straight and a dash is two hyphens. Spellings of the time, such as to-morrow, stay. Characters divided by five give standard words (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute). Titles of the parts and the notes are own work. All checked 2026-09-23. Licence: Public domain in the United States: a novella first published in 1843 (London: Chapman and Hall), before 1931 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_in_the_United_States). Part titles and notes are own work.

More tests

Show 7 more

Browse Keyboard and Typing