DSSSB runs two different skill tests, and most candidates sit only one. For Lower Division Clerk (LDC), Junior Assistant (JSA) and Grade-IV DASS posts it is a typing test — 35 words per minute in English or 30 in Hindi, ten minutes, qualifying-only. For Stenographer Grade C and Grade D it is shorthand dictation followed by computer transcription, at 100 and 80 words per minute. The Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board declared its Stenographer Grade D result on 8 June 2026, so these questions are spiking right now. What follows is the speed math, the mistake penalty, the Hindi-layout question, and a four-week plan built around how the test is actually scored.
Which DSSSB posts have a skill test — and which kind
The first thing to sort out is which test applies to you, because aspirants routinely prepare for the wrong one. DSSSB recruits across dozens of post codes, and the skill stage splits cleanly into two families. Clerical and data-entry posts face a typing test. Stenographer posts face a shorthand dictation plus transcription test. They share a word — "skill test" — and almost nothing else.
On the typing side sit LDC, JSA, Grade-IV (DASS), and several department-specific Assistant roles such as the NDMC IT/Computer Assistant cadres. On the shorthand side sit Stenographer Grade C and the Junior Stenographer / Grade D posts. A few technical posts add an aptitude or trade component instead — the DSSSB IT Assistant line, for instance, has been advertised with an 8,000 key-depressions-per-hour bar (about 26.7 wpm) rather than the 35 wpm clerical standard, which is exactly why the official instruction sheet for your post code is the only number that counts. The Board publishes these post-code-specific sheets under Notice of Exam and Circulars.
One rule holds across both families: the skill test is qualifying. You clear the written Computer-Based Test (CBT) first, the Board issues a cut-off and a shortlist, and only then are qualified candidates called for the skill stage. The skill score decides pass or fail — it is not added to your CBT marks and does not move your rank. That single fact should reshape how you train, and we come back to it in the practice plan.
DSSSB skill test at a glance: speed by post
Before the detail, here is the map. The skill stage you face depends entirely on your post code, and the speed bar moves with it. Use this as a quick reference, then confirm the exact figures in your post's instruction sheet on the Notice of Exam and Circulars page.
| Post | Skill test | Speed standard | Nature |
|---|---|---|---|
| LDC / Grade-IV (DASS) | Typing | 35 wpm English / 30 wpm Hindi, 10 min | Qualifying |
| Junior Assistant (JSA) | Typing | 35 wpm English / 30 wpm Hindi, 10 min | Qualifying |
| IT / Computer Assistant (select posts) | Typing + aptitude | ~8,000 KDPH (≈26.7 wpm) per advt | Qualifying |
| Stenographer Grade C | Shorthand + typing | 100 wpm dictation; ~40 wpm typing | Qualifying |
| Stenographer Grade D / Junior Steno | Shorthand + typing | 80 wpm dictation; ~30–40 wpm typing | Qualifying |
The pattern is consistent even where the numbers differ: every one of these is a pass-or-fail gate, and every one is fixed per post rather than by a single board-wide rule. That is the detail that trips up SSC-trained candidates, who expect one standardised figure across the whole exam.
DSSSB LDC, JSA and Grade-IV typing test: 35 wpm English, 30 wpm Hindi
If your post is LDC, JSA or Grade-IV, here is the whole requirement in one line: type a printed passage on a computer for ten minutes at a minimum of 35 wpm in English or 30 wpm in Hindi. In keystroke terms that is roughly 10,500 key depressions per hour for English and 9,000 for Hindi, since the standard government definition counts one word as five keystrokes including the space. The passage is handed to you on paper; you reproduce it on screen.
The test is data-entry style, not dictation — you copy a given text, you are not transcribing audio. Backspace is permitted in the DSSSB typing interface, which matters more than it sounds: it lets you correct in real time, but every second spent backspacing is a second not spent typing forward, so over-correcting quietly sinks your net speed. The Board's general instructions for the typing skill test spell out the on-screen layout candidates can expect: the source passage in the upper panel, your typing box below it, and a live timer.
Treat 35 wpm as the floor, not the target. Candidates who train to exactly 35 wpm tend to clear it in calm practice and miss it under exam pressure, because nerves cost three to five words a minute and mistakes claw back more. Aim for a comfortable 40–42 gross wpm in practice so that your net speed on test day still lands above 35. You can rehearse the exact format on our DSSSB typing test simulator, and the Hindi version on the DSSSB Hindi typing test.
How DSSSB scores you: gross vs net wpm and the mistake penalty
This is the section that decides results, and it is the one most aspirants skip. DSSSB does not grade your raw speed. It grades your net speed — gross words typed, minus a penalty for every mistake. Gross wpm is simply total characters divided by five, divided by the ten-minute duration. Net wpm subtracts your errors before doing the division.
Errors come in two weights. A full mistake — an omitted word, a wrong (substituted) word, or an extra word inserted — carries a full-word penalty. A half mistake — a spacing slip or a capitalisation error — carries half. Two half mistakes equal one full mistake. The working model DSSSB applies is:
Net wpm = (total keystrokes ÷ 5 − full mistakes − half mistakes ÷ 2) ÷ 10 minutes.
Run the numbers and the lesson is stark. Say you type 380 words gross in ten minutes — that is 38 gross wpm, comfortably above the bar. Now add twelve full mistakes and eight half mistakes: you lose 12 + 4 = 16 words, leaving 364 net, or 36.4 net wpm. Still a pass, but thinner than the gross number suggested. Push the errors to twenty full mistakes and you would drop to 36 net — and a noisier typist at 40 gross with thirty errors can fail outright. Accuracy is not a virtue here; it is arithmetic. Our breakdown of the SSC CGL DEST net-speed method walks through the same penalty logic with worked examples, and it transfers directly to DSSSB.
Two candidates make the point concrete. Anjali types 360 words in her ten minutes with five full mistakes and four half mistakes — a penalty of 5 + 2 = 7 words. Her net is 353, or 35.3 net wpm: a pass. Vikram looks faster at 400 gross words, but he racks up forty-eight full mistakes and twenty half mistakes — a penalty of 48 + 10 = 58. His net drops to 342, or 34.2 net wpm: a fail. The slower, cleaner typist clears the bar the faster one misses. Hold that image whenever you are tempted to chase raw speed in your first week of practice.
The compounding effect is the real lesson. Accuracy does not just dodge penalties; it protects rhythm. A typist who errs once every forty words rarely has to stop, so their gross and net speeds stay close together. A typist erring once every eight words is forever deciding whether to correct, and that hesitation drags gross speed down before the penalty even applies. Clean typing is rewarded twice over — once in the formula, once in the flow.
DSSSB Stenographer Grade C and Grade D: dictation meets transcription
Stenographer posts are a different exam entirely. Instead of copying a printed passage, you take down a dictated passage in shorthand, then transcribe your own notes on a computer. DSSSB runs this as a two-part skill test — shorthand and typing — which is why its conduct notices name both, as in the skill-test conduct notice for shorthand-plus-typing post codes.
The dictation speeds follow the long-standing central convention. Grade C is dictated at 100 words per minute; Grade D (and Junior Stenographer) at 80 words per minute. The dictation runs for ten minutes — roughly an 800-word passage at the 80-wpm level — after which you transcribe on screen within a fixed window. The transcription window varies by grade and language: across central steno recruitment the standard is about 40 minutes (English) or 55 minutes (Hindi) for Grade C, and 50 minutes (English) or 65 minutes (Hindi) for Grade D, the same benchmarks set out in the SSC Stenographers syllabus. DSSSB fixes the exact minutes for your post in the call letter, so read it rather than assuming.
Two DSSSB-specific points are worth holding onto. First, the typing speed embedded in steno selection tends to run at 40 wpm English / 30 wpm Hindi — the familiar 100/40 and 80/30 shorthand-to-typing pairing. Second, DSSSB has historically used live human dictation rather than the pre-recorded electronic audio SSC favours, which changes your pacing practice: you rehearse to a real reader's rhythm, not a metronome. If you are converting raw shorthand speed into clean transcription, our guide on turning shorthand into accurate typed copy covers the transcription discipline, and the Grade C vs Grade D comparison maps how the two grades diverge.
DSSSB Steno Grade D result is out (8 June 2026) — what happens next
The reason steno searches jumped this month: DSSSB declared the Stenographer Grade D result for Advt 05/2024 on 8 June 2026. Qualified candidates from the Computer-Based Test are now shortlisted for the shorthand-and-typing skill test, followed by document verification. You can check your status with your application number or roll number and date of birth on the Board's portals at dsssb.delhi.gov.in and dsssbonline.nic.in.
Skill-test call letters were not released alongside the result — they follow separately, typically with one to three weeks' notice before the test date. That gap is your runway. Candidates who treat the result as the finish line lose the weeks that decide the skill test; candidates who treat 8 June as a starting gun walk in prepared. Watch the Notice of Exam and Circulars page, because that is where the conduct notice and reporting details appear first, ahead of any coaching channel.
If you cleared Grade D, this is also the moment to confirm the exact post and department you are slotted against, since the transcription minutes and the Hindi-or-English medium can differ by indenting department. Do not rely on last year's instruction sheet; pull this cycle's.
Is Hindi typing allowed? Mangal, InScript and the Kruti Dev question
Yes — Hindi is a full option on DSSSB typing tests, and for many Delhi-government posts it is the more natural choice. The Hindi typing test runs on the Mangal font with the Unicode InScript layout, the Government of India standard for Hindi text on computers. The minimum is 30 wpm, or about 9,000 key depressions per hour.
The recurring confusion is Mangal versus Kruti Dev. Kruti Dev is a legacy Remington-style font used in older DTP and some state typewriting certificates; Mangal/InScript is the Unicode standard that DSSSB's computer skill test is built around. For a fresh learner with no Remington muscle memory, InScript is the safer long-term investment — it is the layout central and Delhi-government offices actually run. That said, the precise font and layout enabled at the test centre are set in your post's instruction sheet, so confirm it there rather than assuming. We compare the two layouts in depth in Mangal vs Kruti Dev for 2026, and if you are starting InScript from zero, the 7-day InScript learning plan gets the key map into muscle memory.
Hindi typists carry one extra risk: matras and conjuncts. A misplaced i-matra or a dropped halant reads as a substitution error under the net-speed rule, so Hindi accuracy drills matter even more than English ones. The targeted exercises in our Hindi typing accuracy drills are built for exactly this penalty model.
Documents, call letters and what test day looks like
The skill test is administered at a DSSSB-designated centre, and the logistics are unforgiving of missing paperwork. Carry the skill-test call letter (printed), the CBT admit card, a government photo ID, and the original plus copies of category and eligibility certificates named in your notice. Candidates have been turned away for a name mismatch between the ID and the application, so check that they agree before test day.
On arrival you go through biometric and document checks, then a short demo or familiarisation passage before the timed test begins. The demo is your one chance to confirm the keyboard behaviour, the layout, and that backspace works as expected — use it to settle, not to panic. For Hindi candidates, the demo is also where you verify the font renders as Mangal/InScript and not a surprise legacy layout.
A practical sequence we have seen work: reach the centre early, read the on-paper passage's opening two lines before the clock starts if the interface allows, type at a steady rhythm rather than sprinting the first minute, and keep your eyes on the source paper, not the screen. The Delhi-specific exam pages on our Delhi typing hub collect the post-wise practice sets in one place.
Why candidates fail the DSSSB typing test — and the fix
Clearing 35 wpm at home and clearing it at the centre are different achievements, and the gap between them is where most failures live. Five patterns account for the bulk of them.
Error penalty, not raw speed. The most common failure is a fast, messy typist. Someone clocking 42 gross wpm with twenty-five mistakes can land below the 35 net cut-off, while a steadier typist at 37 gross with four mistakes sails through. The fix is not to slow down permanently — it is to drill accuracy until clean typing is your default, then let speed rebuild on top of it.
Over-using backspace. Because backspace is allowed, anxious candidates correct every slip the moment they see it. Each correction costs two motions and breaks rhythm. Train yourself to finish the line and fix only errors that change meaning — the half-mistake penalty for a stray capital is cheaper than the rhythm you lose stopping for it.
An unfamiliar interface. Candidates who practise only on casual typing websites freeze when the DSSSB layout — source passage above, typing box below, a live timer — looks nothing like what they trained on. Rehearse in the real format so test day holds no surprises; our DSSSB practice runner mirrors the on-screen split.
Hindi layout shock. Hindi candidates who learned a phonetic or Kruti Dev keyboard at home meet InScript at the centre and lose half their speed reaching for matras in unfamiliar positions. If your post tests Hindi on Mangal/InScript, train on InScript from day one — not the week before the test.
Treating the result as the finish line. The candidates who clear the CBT and then relax for three weeks walk into the skill test cold. The ones who start drilling the morning the result drops walk in sharp. The skill test rewards recent, consistent practice far more than raw talent — a fortnight of daily ten-minute runs beats a single panicked all-nighter.
A four-week plan to clear the DSSSB typing test
Because the test is qualifying and net-scored, the fastest route through it is accuracy first, speed second. If you have roughly four weeks, work backward from the cut-off.
Week 1 — diagnose. Take three full ten-minute simulations at your real pace. Ignore the speed number. Instead, write down the words and key combinations that bleed accuracy — usually the same handful of bigrams and the space-bar timing. End the week knowing your error pattern, not your wpm.
Week 2 — accuracy drills. Type slower than feels natural, holding 98% accuracy, and grind the specific errors from Week 1. Your speed will dip first; that is expected. You are rebuilding the muscle memory that the net-speed rule rewards.
Week 3 — speed under accuracy. Now push wpm while refusing to let accuracy fall below 97%. Alternate two-minute sprints with full ten-minute runs so you train both burst speed and stamina. Aim to hold 40+ gross wpm with single-digit mistakes.
Week 4 — full mocks. Run a complete simulation every other day under test conditions: printed passage, timer on, no restarts. Between mocks, review your last five attempts for patterns in errors rather than one-off slips. The candidates we have watched clear it share that single habit — they study their mistakes, they do not just repeat the test.
Steno aspirants add a parallel track: daily 80-or-100 wpm dictation practice with a live reader, then timed transcription, so your shorthand outline quality and your typing speed improve together rather than one bottlenecking the other.
DSSSB vs SSC: five differences that change your prep
Aspirants often prepare for DSSSB using SSC material, and most of it transfers — but five differences matter enough to adjust for.
| Feature | DSSSB | SSC (CHSL/Steno) |
|---|---|---|
| Steno dictation mode | Often live human dictation | Pre-recorded electronic audio |
| Skill-test structure (steno) | Shorthand and typing named as components | Single combined transcription test |
| Typing speed (clerical) | 35 wpm Eng / 30 wpm Hindi | 35 wpm Eng / 30 wpm Hindi (CHSL) |
| Nature of skill test | Qualifying only | Qualifying only |
| Per-post variation | High — speed set by post code | Lower — standardised by exam |
The headline takeaway: the clerical typing numbers are nearly identical, so your SSC CHSL typing practice is directly useful — see our SSC CHSL typing strategy for drills that map across. The steno format, though, is where DSSSB diverges most, and where SSC-trained candidates get caught by the live-dictation rhythm. Prepare for the test you are actually sitting, not the one your study group is discussing.
Frequently asked questions
Is the DSSSB LDC/JSA typing test qualifying or counted in merit?
Qualifying only. You must pass it to proceed, but your typing score is not added to your CBT marks and does not affect your rank. Your written CBT performance decides the merit list.
What is the minimum typing speed for DSSSB JSA and LDC?
35 words per minute in English or 30 words per minute in Hindi, over a ten-minute test — about 10,500 and 9,000 key depressions per hour respectively, counting one word as five keystrokes.
Does DSSSB allow Hindi typing, and which font?
Yes. Hindi typing uses the Mangal font with the Unicode InScript layout at 30 wpm. Confirm the exact layout enabled for your post in the official instruction sheet, since the centre software is set per post code.
Is backspace allowed in the DSSSB typing test?
Backspace is permitted in the DSSSB typing interface, so you can correct as you go. Use it sparingly — time spent correcting reduces your forward speed, and the test is scored on net wpm.
How is net typing speed calculated?
Net wpm subtracts mistakes from gross output: total keystrokes divided by five, minus full mistakes and half of the half-mistakes, divided by the ten-minute duration. Full mistakes (omitted, wrong, or extra words) cost a full word; spacing and capitalisation slips cost half.
What are the DSSSB Stenographer Grade C and Grade D shorthand speeds?
Grade C is dictated at 100 wpm and Grade D at 80 wpm, for ten minutes, after which you transcribe your shorthand on a computer within a fixed window that depends on grade and language.
The DSSSB Steno Grade D result is out — what happens next?
Candidates who cleared the CBT (result declared 8 June 2026) are shortlisted for the shorthand-and-typing skill test, then document verification. Skill-test call letters are released separately on dsssb.delhi.gov.in; watch the Notice of Exam page.
How long should I practise to clear the DSSSB typing test?
If you already type around 30 wpm, four focused weeks — one diagnostic, two on accuracy, one on full mocks — is enough to clear 35 wpm net comfortably. Starting from scratch, plan on eight to twelve weeks. Either way, start today on the DSSSB typing simulator and log your net speed every session — the number you watch is the number that improves.