KPSC Kannada Typing Test — Unicode (InScript) and Nudi, both layouts
The Kannada typing test for KPSC and KEA runs in two keyboard layouts, and this page covers both. Kannada Unicode (InScript) is the modern standard that newer online centres increasingly ship; Nudi is the KP Rao layout Karnataka adopted as its state standard in 2002 and still the operational default at many centres and across Karnataka government offices. Both carry the same 30 WPM Kannada cutoff on a 5-minute passage, and both gate FDA, SDA, Junior Assistant, Computer Operator and several Karnataka direct recruitments. Pick the layout your admit card prints, start the test below, then read the guide written for it — separate deep-dives, scoring, and a five-week plan are all on this page.
- Speed cutoff
- 30 WPM
- Duration
- 5 min
- Source
- KPSC notification
- Layouts
- 2 options
- Scoring
- Net WPM
Choose your Kannada layout
Pick whichever layout your admit card prints — the two tests are separate, with different key positions. Both Start buttons launch the free 5-minute simulator straight away.
Kannada (Unicode / InScript)
The modern Unicode standard. Vowel signs follow the consonant, the way Kannada is read and written, and every keypress stores a real Devanagari-family Unicode character — readable on any system without installing a font, and the same encoding your post's e-office systems will use. Best for new typists with no prior layout habit, and for anyone applying to a 2025+ online notification.
Start in Unicode/InScript → Read the InScript guide ↓Kannada (Nudi — legacy)
The long-standing Karnataka government standard. Nudi is a legacy ASCII font-encoding on the KP Rao phonetic layout — the bytes only render as Kannada when the Nudi font is loaded. It remains the default at most KPSC and KEA centres and in Karnataka government offices. Best for typists already trained on Nudi at a Karnataka coaching centre, or sitting an older state-only centre.
Start in Nudi → Read the Nudi guide ↓Both tests use the same 30 WPM cutoff, the same 5-minute window, and the same backspace allowance — only the keyboard layout and the underlying encoding differ. Not sure which one your centre runs? Read the Unicode vs Nudi comparison below before you commit your practice.
Who takes the KPSC Kannada typing test
Kannada typing is required across Karnataka state recruitments, on whichever layout the conducting board ships. Notifications specify whether Kannada or English is acceptable for each post; the layout — Unicode/InScript or Nudi — is fixed at the centre and printed on the admit card.
First Division Assistant / Second Division Assistant
KPSC's FDA and SDA recruitments include a typing test in Kannada at 25–30 WPM or English at 40 WPM. The Kannada test runs on either Kannada Unicode (InScript) or Nudi, depending on the centre and the cycle; English uses standard QWERTY.
Junior Assistant / Steno-Typist
KEA conducts skill tests on behalf of multiple Karnataka boards and issues the SDC Kannada typing certificate. Its Kannada typing test runs on Nudi at most legacy centres, with Unicode/InScript selectable in newer online notifications, cutoffs in the 25–30 WPM band.
Constable Clerk / Stenographer
State Police clerical recruitments include Kannada typing in some cycles. Speeds sit in the 25–30 WPM range; many centres have begun moving from older Nudi-based tests to Kannada Unicode, so confirm the layout on your admit card.
LDC / Typist
Karnataka High Court LDC and Typist recruitments require Kannada typing at 30 WPM. Court-side notifications have historically leaned on Nudi as the operational default, with Unicode appearing in the most recent online cycles.
Karnataka has the most layout-fragmented Kannada-typing landscape in India, and that fragmentation is exactly why this page covers both keyboards rather than pretending one wins. Older government machines and most KEA legacy centres still run Nudi; newer KPSC online tests increasingly ship Kannada Unicode on InScript. The keystrokes overlap, but the underlying encoding and several key positions do not — a Nudi file is ASCII bytes that only render as Kannada with the Nudi font loaded, while every Unicode keypress is a real Kannada character. If your coaching centre taught Nudi, that is a perfectly valid choice and you can sit the test on it; the only mistake is practising on one layout when the centre will run the other. Confirm your layout at three checkpoints — the application form, the admit card, and the centre's pre-test brief — and drill that exact layout.
Official typing test pattern
The KPSC notification sets the typing requirement in the post-specific notification, as part of the post-written-examination shortlisting. The regional-language stream is the default for the cadres covered on this page; English-medium alternatives exist for a small subset of posts and require a separate application track. Every rule below applies identically whether you sit the test on Unicode/InScript or on Nudi — only the keyboard behaviour differs.
Duration: a 5-minute active typing window, with a separate pre-test instruction screen that does not count against the candidate's time. The timer starts on Begin and runs without pause; invigilators are not authorised to extend it for routine issues like water requests or short technical hiccups — those eat the candidate's own time budget.
Speed cutoff: 30 WPM Net at timer expiry. Accuracy must reach 95% independently of speed. A candidate at the WPM cutoff with 92% accuracy fails on the accuracy gate; a candidate above the WPM cutoff with 97% accuracy passes. Below the floor, the application is removed from the cycle's appointment pool — written-examination performance does not compensate.
Layout: Kannada Unicode (InScript) or Nudi, locked at the application stage. The admit card prints the layout name; centre PCs are configured to match, and a candidate cannot request a switch on test day. Practise on the exact layout the admit card prints — switching costs 8 to 12 WPM from layout shock alone.
Skill-gate logic: the typing test sits between the written shortlist and document verification. It is qualifying in the sense that a score above the floor is sufficient; speeds beyond the floor earn no extra marks but build a buffer against test-day stress and unfamiliar passage vocabulary. Cleared, the application moves to the next stage; missed, it is removed from the pool for the cycle.
How the typing test is scored
For KPSC Kannada typing, the engine scores speed and accuracy independently and applies both as screen-out floors — identically on Unicode/InScript and on Nudi. The harder of the two depends on the candidate's profile: speed-focused candidates trip on accuracy, accuracy-focused candidates trip on speed. The candidates who clear easily have built tolerance for both.
Gross WPM
Gross WPM is the simplest possible measure: total characters produced, divided by five (the standard word length), divided by minutes. Every keystroke that produced a character counts equally regardless of whether it was correct, in the right position, or part of the right word. It is what every commercial typing tutor reports by default, and it routinely overstates how a candidate will perform on the KPSC test bench.
Net WPM
The KPSC Kannada Net WPM formula is symmetric on errors. Wrong character: one error. Missing character: one error. There is no asymmetry to exploit by leaving the end of the passage blank, because the missing characters at the end count just as heavily as the typos in the middle. This is why undertyping is not a safe strategy and why finishing the passage matters even at slightly reduced accuracy.
The accuracy bar is unconditional
The accuracy floor — usually 95% — applies regardless of how strong the Net WPM number is. Many cycles see candidates clear the WPM cutoff by 5 or 6 WPM but slip on accuracy in the closing minute under fatigue. A typo at the 4:45 mark counts exactly the same as a typo at 0:15; the scoring engine does not soften the penalty late. The arithmetic allows no trade-off between speed and accuracy.
Worked example
Gross WPM = (850 + 9) / 5 / 5 = 34.36 WPM
Net WPM = 34.36 − (9 / 5) = 32.56 WPM
Accuracy = 850 / 859 × 100 = 98.95%
Both gates clear: Net WPM of 32.56 sits 2.56 above the 30 WPM floor, and accuracy at 98.95% is comfortably above the 95% requirement. Hitting that band in mock conditions a fortnight before the test date is the realistic preparation target — the bare cutoff itself is the failure threshold, not the aim. The 3-to-5 WPM gap between home practice and centre-day execution is real on either layout, and the cushion is what separates a pass from a marginal fail.
Backspace and editing at KPSC / KEA Kannada centres
Kannada typing certification in Karnataka runs through two boards. KPSC (Karnataka Public Service Commission) handles gazetted-cadre and supervisory recruitment. KEA (Karnataka Examinations Authority) handles standalone Kannada typing certification — the SDC (Senior Departmental Computer) program, Junior and Senior grades — that most state-government recruitments accept as proof of competency, similar in concept to MSCE Marathi or DGE Tamil certifications. The SDC certificate has multi-year validity, so earning it once spares you repeating the typing test for every future cadre application.
Backspace is permitted across current KPSC and KEA Kannada typing software, on both Unicode/InScript and Nudi. But "allowed" is not "free" — its cost in Kannada is higher than in English, because most errors land inside compound characters rather than on standalone letters. Three rules calibrated to Kannada structure:
- Layout-confirmation rule. Plan around the layout your admit card prints, and confirm it at three checkpoints — application, admit card, and the centre pre-test brief. Many Karnataka centres ship Nudi-loaded terminals by default; opting for Unicode/InScript requires that the choice be honoured at each stage. Do not assume.
- Kannada-ottu lock rule. Kannada uses subscript consonant clusters (ottu) — ಕ್ಕ, ತ್ತ, ನ್ನ, ಸ್ಸ, ಮ್ಮ. Each requires a base + halant + secondary-consonant keystroke sequence. A typo inside an ottu usually means deleting the whole compound before retyping; mid-ottu backspace leaves orphaned halant marks on screen. Fix the first ottu occurrence in a passage; subsequent ones template-correct.
- Five-minute closure rule. Kannada sittings are 5 minutes, and the final 45 seconds is a no-backspace zone. Kannada's matra-marker conventions produce odd on-screen states under haste — typing forward through visible imperfections beats attempted backspace correction, because Net WPM has already counted the error once and recovery time adds on top of the penalty, not in place of it.
The single most expensive KPSC-Kannada failure mode is the Mangal-Hindi-trained candidate who declares Kannada InScript thinking the layouts are similar, then meets the Nudi default at the centre. The layouts share Devanagari-family conventions for matra placement but differ in consonant key positions. The candidate types unrecognisable Kannada in the opening minute and cannot recover. The fix is not a layout preference — it is verification. Confirm what the centre runs, then drill that.
Unicode/InScript vs Nudi — which to pick
Both write the same Kannada, but the keyboard behaviour and the file underneath are completely different. The decision is mostly made for you by the admit card — but if you are still choosing, here is the trade-off.
The biggest practical difference is what each keypress stores. Kannada Unicode (InScript) writes a real Devanagari-family Unicode character every time you press a key, so the resulting file is readable on any system without installing a font, and it is the same encoding the e-office and file-noting systems use after you are appointed. Vowel signs follow the consonant, the way Kannada is read and written, which makes InScript easier for a typist with no prior habit. Nudi, by contrast, is a legacy ASCII font-encoding on the KP Rao layout: the bytes stay ASCII and only render as Kannada when the Nudi font is loaded. It has been the Karnataka government standard since 2002 and is what most KEA centres and government offices actually run, so a great many Karnataka aspirants have learned typing exclusively on it.
Modern, phonetic, system-compatible
ಕ sits directly on its key and the vowel sign follows the consonant. Every keypress stores Unicode Kannada — type k+a family sequences and the text is portable, font-free, and matches post-appointment e-office systems. Best for: first-time Kannada typists with no legacy habit, and anyone on a 2025+ online notification.
The Karnataka government standard since 2002
KP Rao phonetic layout; the file stays ASCII and shows Kannada only when the Nudi font loads. Operationally dominant across KEA centres and Karnataka offices. Best for: typists already trained on Nudi at a Karnataka coaching centre, and candidates whose admit card or centre prints Nudi.
The one decisive test: pick the layout the admit card prints — that is what you will get on test day, with no option to change. If you are still at the application stage with no prior habit, Unicode/InScript is the easier start and the more future-proof skill, since government workflows are moving to Unicode. But if your hands are already trained on Nudi, or your local KEA centre runs Nudi, stay on it — switching costs roughly two weeks of dropped speed before you recover. There is no wrong layout here, only a wrong mismatch between what you practise and what the centre runs.
InScript is the Government of India's standard Indic keyboard, and the Kannada InScript layout places vowels on the left hand and consonants on the right, with vowel signs (matras) typed after the consonant — exactly the order in which Kannada is spoken and read. That logical order is why we recommend Unicode/InScript for any KPSC candidate learning Kannada typing from scratch. The centre panel comes pre-loaded; you do not select or install anything. Because each keypress is saved directly as Devanagari-family Unicode, the file you produce is readable on any machine without the Nudi font, and the same encoding drives the e-office, file-noting and notification systems you will use after appointment. For a 2025+ online KPSC notification, Unicode/InScript is increasingly the layout you will actually meet.
Six recurring mistakes on the Unicode/InScript layout
These failure modes apply specifically to KPSC and KEA Kannada candidates sitting the Unicode/InScript layout — the Karnataka government corpus, the Bengaluru–Mysuru–Mangaluru coaching infrastructure, and the InScript matra-after-consonant order that catches Nudi-trained typists.
Carrying a Nudi finger-map onto InScript
A typist who learned Nudi and then declares InScript at application finds the consonant key positions have moved. Nudi is phonetic-Roman-ish; InScript is a fixed Indic map. The first minute on the new layout produces garbage Kannada, and the candidate panics.
If you switch to InScript, give it three full weeks — not the final week. Drill the InScript consonant map cold before adding any KPSC passage.Drilling on neutral Kannada prose instead of the Karnataka administration corpus
KPSC and KEA passages reference state departments and schemes — ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸರ್ಕಾರ, ಜಿಲ್ಲಾಧಿಕಾರಿ ಕಚೇರಿ, ತಾಲೂಕು ಕಚೇರಿ, ಗ್ರಾಮ ಪಂಚಾಯತ್, ನಗರ ಪಾಲಿಕೆ, ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಇಲಾಖೆ. These compound nouns recur and slow a typist who has only drilled storybook Kannada.
Build a 30-term Karnataka-government vocabulary list from karnataka.gov.in scheme PDFs and government-coverage articles in Vijaya Karnataka and Prajavani. Drill it daily from week 2.Skipping Kannada ottu (subscript consonant) drilling
Kannada uses extensive consonant clusters where a secondary consonant attaches as a subscript ottu — ಕ್ಕ, ತ್ತ, ನ್ನ, ಸ್ಸ, ಮ್ಮ, ಪ್ಪ, ಯ್ಯ. On InScript each is a base + halant + secondary-consonant sequence. Typists without dedicated ottu drilling produce these with visible pauses, losing 2–3 WPM across the passage.
Drill 10–12 high-frequency ottu compounds for 10 minutes daily from week 2. By week 3 the sequences should be reflexive on InScript.Optimising for peak burst speed instead of sustained average
A 50-WPM burst for 30 seconds is irrelevant when the test averages over 5 minutes. The number that decides selection is the time-averaged Net WPM, and sustaining it through fatigue is harder than peaking at it.
Train on full-length 5-minute passages from week 2. Track average Net WPM across the whole window, not peak WPM on any segment.Underestimating Bengaluru vs coastal Kannada dialect variation
Standard Bengaluru–Mysuru Kannada dominates published government content, but it differs in vocabulary and idiom from coastal Mangaluru–Udupi or northern Belagavi–Dharwad Kannada. KPSC passages lean standard but occasionally include regional administrative content, and an unfamiliar term in the opening minute costs momentum.
Give 10–15% of weekly practice to cross-region Karnataka administrative content — coastal DC-office notifications, northern-Karnataka district publications.Missing the bilingual English–Kannada cadre expectation
Karnataka state work is often bilingual — Kannada for state files, English for inter-state and central correspondence. Some KPSC cadres, especially Bengaluru IT-corridor and liaison roles, expect competent English typing on top of Kannada, sometimes assessed at DV or internal promotion.
Keep a minimum 25 WPM English baseline alongside Kannada. Ten minutes daily on English pays off in cadre flexibility post-allotment.A five-week InScript plan
For a Kannada-medium aspirant starting near a 11 WPM Kannada baseline on InScript, targeting 32 WPM with buffer above the cutoff. The KEA SDC Junior (25 WPM) certificate is the foundational milestone.
InScript layout foundation
- Daily 25-minute drill on InScript home-row consonants
- Memorise vowel-sign positions (matras after consonant)
- Read Karnataka government Kannada each evening
- No timed mocks yet — layout fluency first
Karnataka corpus integration
- Switch corpus to Karnataka administration content
- Drill the 30-term government vocabulary list
- Begin daily ottu compound drill
- Two short 5-minute mocks at end of week
Ottu fluency and speed ramp
- Daily 5-minute Kannada passage mock
- 10–12 high-frequency ottu compounds as fixed phrases
- Kannada-ottu lock rule reinforced
- Mid-week rest day
Buffer above the KEA Junior bar
- Two full 5-minute mocks per day at exam-slot time
- Five-minute closure rule strictly enforced
- External USB keyboard from this week onwards
- Add 10 minutes daily of English typing
Centre simulation and taper
- Two mocks/day for three days, then one per day
- Final two days off — rest beats final drilling
- Verify KEA centre location and route timing
- Domicile and SSLC certificates collected
Take the InScript test in centre conditions
The KPSC Kannada Unicode/InScript format, free in the browser: 5-minute timer, exam-style passage, Net WPM with the 95% accuracy gate. The result card shows exactly where any cutoff miss came from. No account creation, no data persistence off-device.
Start in Unicode/InScript →Nudi is the layout Karnataka has actually typed on for two decades. The Karnataka government adopted the KP Rao Nudi layout as its official standard in 2002, and it remains the operational default at almost every KEA legacy centre and across state government offices — which is why a great many Karnataka coaching centres still teach Nudi first. Unlike Tamil, where Tamil99 and Bamini compete, Karnataka has largely standardised on one layout, so the decision is less fraught: if you trained on Nudi, you can sit the KPSC test on Nudi. The one thing to understand is what Nudi is. It is a legacy ASCII font-encoding, not Unicode. Each key produces an ASCII byte, and those bytes only render as Kannada glyphs when the Nudi font is loaded on the machine. On screen the Kannada looks identical to Unicode; underneath, the file is a stream of Latin-range characters. That distinction matters at the centre — the scoring engine for a Nudi test reads the ASCII stream, so practising on a Unicode tutor and then sitting a Nudi centre produces a mismatch even when the on-screen text looks right.
Six recurring mistakes on the Nudi layout
Failure modes specific to KPSC and KEA candidates sitting Nudi — the legacy ASCII ecosystem, the KEA SDC certificate's role as the foundational Karnataka typing credential, and the Karnataka government corpus.
Practising on a Unicode tutor, then sitting a Nudi centre
The most damaging Nudi mistake: drilling on a Unicode/InScript tutor because it was the first one found online, then meeting a Nudi-loaded terminal at the centre. The on-screen Kannada looked identical in practice, but the key positions and the byte stream differ, and the scoring engine reads Nudi ASCII.
If your admit card or centre runs Nudi, practise exclusively on a Nudi-encoding test — like the Nudi simulator linked below — from week one.Drilling neutral prose instead of the Karnataka administration corpus
Nudi passages on KPSC and KEA tests are drawn from administrative correspondence and government plain-language documents — ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸರ್ಕಾರ, ತಾಲೂಕು ಕಚೇರಿ, ನಗರ ಪಾಲಿಕೆ — not literature. Project-Gutenberg-style practice builds general skill but not test-specific reflex.
Source practice passages from the conducting authority's own publications — notifications, departmental annual reports, press releases.Missing the KEA SDC certificate's life-validity advantage
KEA issues the SDC (Senior Departmental Computer) Kannada typing certificate — Junior grade for 25 WPM, Senior for 40 WPM — that Karnataka accepts as proof of typing competency across most subsequent recruitment cycles. A candidate who clears a one-time recruitment-cycle test without the SDC must repeat the typing test for every future cadre application.
Earn the KEA SDC Junior (25 WPM) and ideally Senior (40 WPM) on Nudi as foundational steps before applying to any KPSC recruitment.Backspacing through ottu compounds the slow way
On Nudi, an ottu cluster is a fixed key sequence, and a typo inside it usually means deleting the whole compound before retyping — exactly as on InScript, but with different keys. Candidates who learned the rule but never drilled the Nudi-specific sequence lose seconds per correction.
Drill the 10–12 highest-frequency Nudi ottu sequences as whole units. Correct only the ottu in the current word; let earlier ones ride.Switching software in the final week
A candidate who practised on one Nudi tutor for four weeks, then switches to a different mock platform the week of the test, introduces UI shock — different timer placement, cursor highlight, error indication. The unfamiliarity costs 2–4 WPM right when it matters most.
Lock your Nudi practice tool in week one. Switch only for a clear functional reason; switching for variety is a net loss.Practising on a chiclet laptop, testing on a full-size USB
KEA centre PCs use full-size keyboards with 1.5 mm key travel and deeper actuation. A candidate who has only practised on a flat laptop keyboard loses 5–8 WPM on test day to keyboard shock alone — the Nudi key positions feel different under deeper travel.
Buy a basic wired USB keyboard two weeks out and practise on it exclusively for the final stretch of preparation.A four-week Nudi plan
A working plan for the four weeks before the assessment on Nudi. Daily commitment: 30 to 45 focused minutes, with a weekly mock from week 2.
Nudi accuracy foundation
- Nudi home-row drills, no look-down, daily
- Two 5-minute passages a day at comfortable speed
- Source passages from the conducting authority
- Reject any drill that drops accuracy below 95%
Speed ramp + corpus
- Three 5-minute timed runs per session
- Karnataka government vocabulary from day one
- Begin daily Nudi ottu sequence drill
- Review errors after the drill, not during
Mid-cycle adjustment
- Identify your weakest minute of the window
- Drill that minute in isolation first half of session
- Full mocks in the second half
- Track best-minute vs worst-minute gap
Confidence + final calibration
- Two full mocks per day, morning and evening
- Track the morning-vs-evening gap as fatigue signal
- External USB keyboard for the final stretch
- Skip the final two days — rest beats the last drill
Take the Nudi test in centre conditions
The KPSC Kannada Nudi format, free in the browser: 5-minute timer, exam-style passage, Net WPM scoring with the 95% accuracy floor and a backspace-rule picker. No sign-up, no ads inside the typing widget, and a result card that breaks down exactly where the Net WPM penalty came from.
Start in Nudi →Frequently asked questions
Cycle-current answers covering both layouts. The numbers below are sourced from the KPSC notification and verified against the most recent published recruitment window.
30 WPM Kannada for most KPSC and Karnataka Govt clerical posts (FDA, SDA, Junior Assistant, Computer Operator). Some posts add a 30 WPM English component. The cutoff is the same whether you take it on Unicode/InScript or Nudi.
KPSC FDA (First Division Assistant), SDA (Second Division Assistant), Junior Assistant, Computer Operator, KEA recruitments, Karnataka High Court LDC/Typist, and several state-government direct recruitments. The typing test is a qualifying gate.
Pick the layout printed on your admit card or selected at application. Modern KPSC and KEA online centres increasingly run Kannada Unicode on the InScript layout, while Nudi — the KP Rao layout Karnataka adopted as its state standard in 2002 — remains the operational default at many centres and in most Karnataka government offices. New typists with no prior habit are usually faster long-term on Unicode/InScript; typists already trained on Nudi should stay on Nudi. We provide a Start button for each.
Unicode/InScript stores every keypress as a Devanagari-family Unicode Kannada character, so the file is readable on any system without installing a font, and it matches the e-office systems used after appointment. Nudi is a legacy ASCII font-encoding: the bytes only render as Kannada when the Nudi font is loaded. The key positions differ, so a candidate must drill the layout the centre will actually run.
Net WPM = Gross WPM minus errors per minute, with a separate accuracy floor (usually 95%). Kannada conjuncts (ottu) count as multiple keystrokes. The skill test is qualifying; clearing 30 WPM with the accuracy bar is sufficient. Scoring is identical on both layouts.
Backspace is permitted across current KPSC and KEA Kannada typing software on both layouts. Older state-only centres may disable it. It is more expensive in Kannada than in English because a typo inside an ottu cluster usually means deleting the whole compound before retyping. Verify the rule on your admit-card instructions.
Formal Kannada prose — administrative, governance, or general-knowledge topics drawn from Karnataka state-government writing, with terms like ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸರ್ಕಾರ, ಜಿಲ್ಲಾಧಿಕಾರಿ ಕಚೇರಿ and ಗ್ರಾಮ ಪಂಚಾಯತ್. Standard Kannada punctuation. About 500–700 Kannada characters in a 5-minute window.
The Karnataka Examinations Authority issues the SDC (Senior Departmental Computer) Kannada typing certificate — Junior grade at 25 WPM and Senior grade at 40 WPM — which most Karnataka government recruitments accept as proof of typing competency. Earning it once spares you repeating the typing test for every future cadre application.
You can, but expect a two-week dip in speed first because the key positions differ. Switch only if your admit card or application requires it, or if you have several months before the test. Mangal-Hindi-trained candidates who assume Kannada InScript is similar to a Nudi default often lose the opening minute; practise on the exact layout your centre will run.
From 18 WPM Kannada to 30 WPM: three to four weeks of thirty focused minutes a day. Below 12 WPM: six to eight weeks. Drill 98 percent accuracy first, then push speed. The timeline is the same on either layout.
Yes. The keystrokes overlap between Unicode/InScript and Nudi but the underlying encoding and several key positions do not. Practising on a layout the centre does not run costs 8 to 12 WPM from layout shock alone on test day. Confirm your layout at application, on the admit card, and at the centre pre-test brief before you commit your practice.