How we calculate your results.

Words per minute

the paris standard

Monkey Morse uses the PARIS standard — the measure radio operators have used to quote morse speed for over a century. It counts the actual time-cost of each letter in morse, not characters typed on a keyboard.

The unit system

Every element of morse code has a fixed length:

• A dot (·) is 1 unit.
• A dash (−) is 3 units.
• Gap between dots and dashes inside a letter: 1 unit.
• Gap between letters: 3 units.
• Gap between words: 7 units.

Why "PARIS"?

The reference word "PARIS " (with a trailing space) sums to exactly 50 units when you total its letters and the gaps between them. So one "morse word" is defined as 50 units, and WPM is:

We walk through every correctly-typed letter, add up its unit cost plus the appropriate gaps, then divide by 50 per minute. Short letters like E (·) contribute very little; long ones like J (·−−−) or Q (−−·−) contribute a lot. This is fairer than the typing-test convention (which treats every letter as worth 1/5 of a word), because in morse, letters genuinely take different amounts of time to send.

Heads up — PARIS WPM numbers look lower than typing WPM numbers from sites like Monkeytype. That's expected: you're being measured against the actual rhythm of morse, not 5-character chunks. A steady 10 PARIS WPM is a real achievement.

Accuracy

share of keystrokes that matched

The percentage of your keystrokes that matched the target letter. Backspaced letters drop out of both the numerator and denominator, so deleting a wrong letter doesn't permanently hurt your score.

Consistency

how steady your speed is

During the test, we measure your current WPM about once per second. Consistency is a 0–100% score that says how close those measurements stay to each other.

• If your speed barely changes, the score is near 100%.
• If it bounces around — fast bursts, slow gaps — the score drops.
• It's possible to have a high average WPM but low consistency, and vice versa.

An example

Two imaginary tests, both averaging 10 WPM:

• Test A — samples: 10, 11, 9, 10, 10. Steady throughout. Consistency ≈ 93%.
• Test B — samples: 5, 18, 8, 15, 4. Same average, but swinging wildly. Consistency ≈ 40%.

The formula

Stddev (standard deviation) is a measure of how far the samples stray from the average. Dividing by the mean turns it into a relative number — so a swing of ±2 WPM at 10 WPM matters more than the same swing at 100 WPM. We subtract that from 100% to flip it: high consistency = small swings.

Chars

correct over incorrect

Raw counts of characters you got right and wrong over the whole test. Useful for sanity-checking the percentages above.

Time

measured from your first keystroke

Total elapsed time, starting from your first input — not from when the page loaded. Sit and read the screen as long as you like before starting; the clock doesn't begin until you do.