Number 8 Typing Practice

How to type 8 without looking

1. Anchor your hands on the home row.
2. Reach up from K to 8 with your right middle finger. The number row is two rows up, so the reach is longer than for letters.
3. Return to K immediately. Returning is what keeps your next keystroke accurate.

On a numeric keypad

Rest your index, middle and ring fingers on 4, 5 and 6. The 5 key has a raised bump. Type 1, 4 and 7 with the index finger, 2, 5 and 8 with the middle finger, 3, 6 and 9 with the ring finger and 0 with the thumb. Practice with the 10-key test.

Keys you might hit by mistake

On QWERTY, the keys around 8 are 7, 9, I, O, P. If your results show errors on 8, check whether you are pressing one of these instead. That usually means your hand has drifted from the home row; reset by feeling for the bumps on F and J.

Typing a capital 8

Press Shift with your left hand (the opposite hand from the one that types 8), then press 8. Using the opposite Shift keeps both hands on the home row and is faster than reaching with the same hand.

A 5-minute routine for 8

1. One minute slow: type the drill above at half speed with 100% accuracy.
2. Two minutes of words: 9218, 6827, 8036, 7548, 387, 3892. Type each word five times.
3. One minute of pairs: type the most common pairs with 8 listed below, then reverse them.
4. One test: take a 1-minute typing test and check the Keys tab to see if 8 got faster.

Repeat daily for a week. Speed on a single key improves quickly because the movement is so small.

How Typeri finds your weak keys

Every test records how long each key takes and how often you miss it. The Keys tab on your results shows a heat map of your keyboard, and weak key practice builds a drill from the keys that cost you the most time.

Why number keys are harder

The number row sits two rows above the home row, so every digit needs a longer reach than any letter. Many typists who touch type letters still look down for numbers. Short daily drills on single digits, then on mixed numbers, close that gap quickly. If you enter long columns of numbers at work, the numeric keypad is faster still: try the 10-key test.

Which finger types which key

Every way to practice on Typeri

Add punctuation or numbers to time and words tests, switch between 12 languages, and open the settings to change text size, show an on-screen keyboard, add a pace caret or stop on errors.

More questions

How many words is a number 8 drill? At the average speed of 52 WPM you will type about 52 words. At 40 WPM about 40 words, and at 80 WPM about 80 words.

How accurate is the number 8 drill? It counts only correctly typed characters and uses the standard five-characters-per-word formula, the same method employers and typing schools use. For a reliable number, take the test three times and average the results.

Why is my score lower than on other sites? Many sites report raw speed or round up. Typeri reports net speed, so uncorrected mistakes do not count. Text difficulty also matters: punctuation, capitals and numbers all slow everyone down.

Does the test work on a phone? Yes. Tap the text to open your keyboard. Phone typing is usually slower than a physical keyboard, so compare phone results with other phone results.

How often should I test? Once or twice a day is plenty. Spend the rest of your practice time on drills for your weakest keys and letter pairs, which is where improvement comes from.

Other keys

Frequently asked questions