CW Speed Limit Test
The question "how fast can I copy?" has three answers, and confusing them is the most common mistake in learning Morse.
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Ten characters at each speed. Get nine of ten and it steps up. The test ends where it breaks down, and gives you three numbers rather than one.
Why three numbers and not one
- Reliable speed - where it sits solidly. This is where you work: real contacts, real traffic, nothing to prove.
- Training zone - just above. Uncomfortable, mostly right, occasionally lost. This is where you grow, and it is a narrow band.
- Current limit - where it collapses. Nothing is learnt here. The brain switches from recognising to guessing, and guessing gets reinforced.
Most people know only their limit, and they quote it. It is the least useful of the three: it is a bad predictor of what you can do tomorrow, and a terrible choice of practice speed.
How the staircase works
Not a slow ramp upwards. A staircase, the method used in psychophysics to find thresholds: up while it holds, one step back if it fails immediately, stop when it breaks.
The reason is that a ramp measures where you happened to slip once. A staircase measures where the ability actually ends, and it does it in a few minutes instead of a session.
Two details worth knowing:
- Ten characters per step. Fewer and chance decides: at five characters, one lucky guess moves the result by a whole step.
- One step back, once. If it collapses at the very first speed, the test drops a step - otherwise it would only be measuring that the starting value was too high. Once, not repeatedly: a second retreat would be a second measurement.
What goes into your progress
Only the reliable speed.
The limit is a day's form - it moves with sleep, coffee and how long you have already been listening. Stored as a personal best it would mislead: the coach reads this figure to size the next exercise, and an exercise built on a good day's limit is unsolvable on a bad one.
Run the test again in a few weeks rather than chasing the number today.
If the result looks too low
Two things are usually behind it, and neither is speed.
Single characters are harder than words. There is no context to fall back on, so this test reads lower than your copying speed on real text. That is intentional - it measures recognition, not guesswork.
Typing gets in the way. At higher speeds part of what fails is the hand, not the ear. If you find yourself hearing the character and mistyping it, the number is measuring your keyboard. Head copy takes the keyboard out.
Frequently asked questions
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How long does the test take?
A few minutes. Ten characters per step, and most people run through four to six steps before it breaks down.
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Why is my result lower than my usual copying speed?
Because single characters have no context. On real text you fill gaps from the words around them; here there is nothing to fill from, so the figure is lower and more honest.
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Which speed should I practise at?
The training zone, just above your reliable speed. Practising at the limit trains guessing; practising well below it trains nothing.