There's light at the end of the tunnel

I only have a few more weeks of class this quarter. Last night we took two speed tests. One was the usual speed test given on Mondays. It was given at 56 words per minute. I think I did fairly well – although you never know if you’ve “spazzed out” for a few words until you get your results to see what you missed.

The other test was our 60 words per minute final exam. This is our final exam speed test that we have to receive a 97% accuracy score or we don’t pass the course. Yikes! No pressure there. The instructor decided that she will give this speed test during every class until the end of the term. So I’ll have four more chances to get a passing grade. I was keeping up quite easily at first, but then it seemed like the instructor was starting to dictate faster. I’m sure that she wasn’t ~ I was just getting farther behind. I don’t think I passed this time, but I think I might be close to passing, so I’m anxious to see my score.

Train your brain - Great advice from our professors

During last night’s class, we received some great advice on speed building. Since there are so many of us are trying to reach our ultimate goal of 225 wpm, I thought I would share her advice here on my blog.

She asked if anyone in the class was in the habit of mouthing the words of her dictation. One gal raised her hand. Then she asked if anyone was in the habit of repeating her dictation silently to themselves in their head. At that point, I raised my hand. She told us that we needed to break that habit right away. And here’s why: “If I’m dictating at 60 words per minute,” she said, “and you’re repeating everything you hear, you’re actually hearing 120 words per minute.” You need to train your brain to transcribe from the initial word you hear, not the word you repeat to yourself. It makes perfect sense. Now if only I could get my brain to comply . . .

Yikes!

I just received the grade from my first “official” speed test. I got an 83% . Crikey!

In my defense, I knew I wasn’t going to do well. I was having “one of those days”. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. I couldn’t focus, my mind kept getting hung up on certain words, and my fingers felt like they were moving in slow motion.

On the bright side, 83% is a solid B, so I guess I won’t commit hari kari.

My first "unofficial" speed test

We had our first "unofficial" speed test. Our instructor wanted to get an assessment on how fast we were writing. As a warm up, she dictating three takes at 48 words per minute. Then she tested us at 52 words per minute. We were given time to type up our notes and hand them in. I just received an e-mail with my score. 98.35% correct! Here is some of the advice she gave me:

"You should have no trouble passing the 60 wpm take by the end of the quarter. Practice RTC (RealTime Coach) as much as you can, tackling speeds where you are being challenged but where you are not completely out of control. There are finger drill exercises and theory exercises and speed exercises...plenty to keep you busy over the break. If you work hard on speed building through the end of the quarter and over the break, you will hopefully spend very little time in 80s. Don't get too bogged down with briefs and phrases. Only concentrate on the ones that make sense to you and that you believe will come up a lot."

Well, back to speedbuilding. I've only practice about and hour and a half today and I need to get in another hour or so.

SHUS, SHAL and Numbers.

I’ve had a full week to play around with RealTime Coach and, while it’s a lot of fun, it’s frustrating too. I’m not so sure I like having my weaknesses displayed so prominently in the form of accuracy percentages! But seriously, it’s a great tool.

Our first homework assignment was the SHUS and SHAL endings. Our professor wanted us to strive for 90% accuracy at 60 wpm. That was a little tough. I only managed to get a score of 76% accuracy. I was happy to get a 100% accuracy rating at 45 wpm, though. Mind you . . . that occurred only after working on those drills for about 30 minutes apiece.

The other drills assigned were NUMBERS. Ugh, talk about my weak spot. I started out on the 45 wpm drills and was dropping words and hesitating all over the place. I did so poorly that the program wouldn’t even give me an accuracy score. The computer pop-up politely said, “Um, yeah, I think you should try some slower drills”. I dropped down to the 25 wpm drills. It was ugly. But, I know what I need to work on!

My violin teacher used to tell me, “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.” This applies to court reporting too.

RealTime Coach

Last night’s class was a blast! All three of our professors were in attendance and helped us set up our laptop computers to work with Eclipse and RealTime Coach. After about an hour and a half of downloading plug-ins and updating Acrobat, we had a quick tutorial on RealTime Coach and we were ready to give it a try.

What a cool program! I know it’s rather expensive, so I’m grateful that I get to use it under the educational license for Colorado Tech.

I know this post is going to sound like an advertisement for RealTime Coach, but I’m really jazzed about using this program. And, for those of you who know me, it takes a lot to impress me. So bear with me. RealTime Coach has a vast amount of audio takes from 40 wpm to 260 wpm. You can choose from a variety of different subjects from medical conversations, legal depositions, and literature. I was typing from Charles Dickens’s novel A Christmas Carol last night. I chose an audio take of 60 wpm. It was a little too fast for me, but RealTime Coach allows you to slow it down (or speed it up) in small increments.

After you complete writing your audio drill, the program will give you an assessment of how you did. It suggests ways to improve your speed. RealTime Coach can recognize your problem areas or if you ghosting letters. It may suggest finger drills or speed drills which, of course, are available in this program too

The problem we had during class last night was that no one thought to bring their headphones! It was very difficult to hear your audio over everyone else’s. So, needless to say, I can’t wait to get home and start logging my practice time!