How Fast Do You Read?

I just took this test, which I found incredibly interesting (Thanks to I'm a Reader Not a Writer blog for pointing me there!)

It's a tool from Staples to test how fast you read. I've known for a long time that I'm not a particularly fast reader, but I honestly thought that with all the reading I've done in the past few years, I probably had at least improved. Alas, I'm still below the national average. Here is my report:

As you can see, I read about 250 words per minute. That's not skimming. I did get the following three comprehension questions correct, so I obviously took in some of what I read, even though it didn't interest me.

People ask me often how I set crazy goals like reading a hundred books per year, if I'm not a fast reader. My only answer to this is audiobooks. Well, that and Kindle, since my Kindle has a text to speech capability that allows me to listen to books (even my own works in progress, which is really cool.)

I don't get a lot of uninterrupted time to read (and it would take a lot at my reading rate) but I do spend time driving and at the gym, at my son's judo practices, etc, and these allow me time to listen to books, if not to read them.

Are you interested in finding out how you fare against the national average? There's a link to the test below. I hope you'll come back and tell me how it went for you!





 Source: Staples eReader Department