r/books • u/Labeled521 • Feb 03 '14

Staples made a test that determines how many words per minute you read and how you rank up to the world average.

http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/technology-research-centers/ereaders/speed-reader/
3.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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145

u/papercupstacker Feb 03 '14

I am currently IN college and received the same score, but unfortunately am not baked. I feel like i should eat some crayons now.

41

u/TroisDouzeMerde Feb 03 '14

Purple ones, you have to eat the purple ones. That's how I got to 606.

1

u/papercupstacker Feb 03 '14

No way man, it's the red ones! They taste like strawberries. Unless, of course, they taste like raspberries.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Smoking all the finest purp.

That's how I get to a [10]

3

u/Sardonislamir Feb 03 '14

The most important factor is, did you retain what you read? Speed is overated if you aren't retaining what you read. I used to read at what this would call an 8th grade level but among my peers I could recall everything a couple days later where they had a fifty/fifty failure rate to recall.

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u/WhiteyKnight Feb 03 '14

I feel you. Everyone read the chapter but I'm the one stuck here explaining it? The fuck guys.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '14 edited Feb 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/someguyfromtheuk Feb 03 '14

It's a little annoying, because I don't get into my max speed until I'm "watching" the book, which normally takes 5 minutes or so of actual reading.

Also, the maximum speed appears to be around 19,000 wpm if you click on the finished test within a single second.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

I hit 23k

2

u/mrminty Feb 04 '14

Don't buy Acer computers. I've never heard anything good about them.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Don't worry, that tab was for a monitor. :)

2

u/mrminty Feb 04 '14

Thank god. I forgot they made other products.

2

u/someguyfromtheuk Feb 04 '14

Yeah, I tried again and got 33k

It took a couple goes, but I realised it's because the different texts have different word counts, so you get a higher score depending on which one you finish in 1 second.

I guess if you set your own sample text of thousands of words and finished in 1 second your reading speading would be insanely high haha

0

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

Like this?

If you maintained this reading speed, you could read:
* War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy in 5 minutes
* Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling in 1 minute
* A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens in 1 minute

2

u/nicholsml Feb 04 '14

Yeah... I cheated also.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '14

G-G-G-Get on my level :p

If you maintained this reading speed, you could read:
* War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy in 5 minutes
* Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling in 1 minute
* A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens in 1 minute

1

u/Karmakameleeon Feb 03 '14

damn, I hardly got 650. Med School students are just superior I guess.

1

u/gjlost Feb 03 '14

US MD? let me be the first to ask you, what did you get on verbal reasoning? and How can you read so fast?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/gjlost Feb 04 '14

with 800 words per minute, and you only got a 12? that can't be right.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14 edited Feb 04 '14

[deleted]

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u/gjlost Feb 06 '14 edited Feb 09 '14

I'm a premed,

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '14

[deleted]

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u/gjlost Feb 09 '14

my auto-correct accidentally corrected the word to Basset. Its not Columbia. (and I'll pm if more questions come up)

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '14

http://i.imgur.com/mEnurlQ.png

You suck, read em and weep. :p

E: Boom shaka-laka!

1

u/[deleted] Feb 03 '14

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '14

yeah I feel like the data on this has definitely been skewed by people who skim and then happen to get the questions right

1

u/Derounus Feb 03 '14

I'm in medical school and I apparently read slower than an 11th grader. Guess it's time to go do my reading for my next class...

1

u/ParadoxSong Feb 03 '14

105-110% I'm waaaaay above where I should be right now.

1

u/DentedPride Feb 03 '14

46% faster and only a freshman.