How quickly do you read?

On January 06 2009 10:34 Klockan3 wrote:
The questions were silly and rewards just glancing over the text. That is just something to promote their program, since most who reads faster really do lose reading comprehension it is just that this test is specifically tailored so that you don't lose any score since it only asks very general questions about the text.

On January 06 2009 10:56 Koiru wrote:
Your average reading speed over this passage was 28710 words per minute.

You scored 40% of the questions correct.

On January 06 2009 10:20 Qeet wrote:
didnt look at the test, but i think its possible to comprehend 1000wpm, if the sentences are common and you read all day long. the people capable of doing this are reconstructing whole passages of text in their minds like normal people do with letters to words (you dont look at single letters but whole words)

On January 06 2009 10:05 Hippopotamus wrote:
Also, I'm interested in your ideas of what a reasonable maximum average speed is for stuff that matters. Not like a newspaper, but say, something about this complex. This isn't Ulysses, but certainly if you compare it to most write ups it has more logical substance to take on, more explication than summarization. The above websites suggest it is possible to comprehend at rates over 1000 wpm. I'm almost certain that's impossible, but could you see someone getting 90%+ comprehension at 500 wpm?

On January 06 2009 10:05 Hippopotamus wrote:
Also, I'm interested in your ideas of what a reasonable maximum average speed is for stuff that matters. Not like a newspaper, but say, something about this complex. This isn't Ulysses, but certainly if you compare it to most write ups it has more logical substance to take on, more explication than summarization. The above websites suggest it is possible to comprehend at rates over 1000 wpm. I'm almost certain that's impossible, but could you see someone getting 90%+ comprehension at 500 wpm?

On January 06 2009 12:05 qrs wrote:

I think that there are two separate things involved here. One is reading at a level that allows you to see and remember the things that you read. Another understanding something that may require some thought to assimilate. In your example encyclopedia article, it may well be that some extra thinking time is required to understand what you are reading. It may also be that without spending those extra minutes, your retention will suffer because you don't understand it as well, but this doesn't mean that the extra time should be reckoned as part of the cost of reading.

IMO, the paradigmatic test of reading speed should be anything where the details are important (i.e. it can't be skimmed without losing something) but where no thinking is required to actually understand those details. It's hard to entirely separate the two though.

On January 06 2009 17:26 NoobsOfWrath wrote:
I read everything extremely slowly because I assumed the comprehension test would actually test something IN THE PASSAGE like what faction would disintegrate and why the Kurds would attempt to secede etc, and then the comprehension questions were total garbage. So reading slowly with the intent to 100% remember every tiny detail I got a 764. If I were just reading at a normal pace without trying to read every word carefully I get about a 950.