SSC Stenographer Typing Test — English Transcription

Stenographer is the only major SSC cadre where typing skill is necessary but not sufficient. Without working shorthand at the post-level speed, the dictation step ends the candidate's selection regardless of typing ability. Online practice can drill transcription pace but cannot teach shorthand — that is in-person training. If shorthand is solid and only transcription needs sharpening, this page and the simulator below cover what online practice can deliver.

SSC publishes the Stenographer skill-test rules in the annual notification. The pattern has been stable for the past decade.

Stage 1 (CBT): 200 marks, 2 hours, three sections — General Intelligence (50), General Awareness (50), English Language and Comprehension (100). The CBT result decides who qualifies for Stage 2.

Stage 2 — Step A: Dictation. The candidate sits with shorthand notebook and listens to a 10-minute audio dictation. Grade C: 100 words per minute. Grade D: 80 WPM. The full passage is written in shorthand during this window — no transcription yet.

Stage 2 — Step B: Transcription. The candidate moves to a computer terminal and transcribes the shorthand notes onto the screen. Grade C English: 40 minutes; Grade D English: 50 minutes. Hindi transcription windows are longer (55 / 65 minutes) to account for conjunct typing.

Mistake calculation: mistakes are counted against the total words in the dictated passage, not the words actually typed. A skipped sentence loses those words as omissions; a wrong substitution counts as one full mistake. Half mistakes (capitalisation, punctuation slips) count as 0.5.

Mistake bands: Grade C — 5% UR/EWS, 7% OBC, 10% SC/ST. Grade D — 7% UR/EWS, 10% OBC, 12% SC/ST. Above the band is a fail regardless of how clean the rest of the transcription was.

Qualifying only: the skill test is pass/fail. Stage 1 CBT marks decide the final merit list. But a candidate who fails the skill test is removed from the selection pool for that recruitment cycle.

The Stenographer transcription panel is a standard text editor. Backspace, arrow keys, copy-paste between paragraphs, find-and-replace — all available. Many candidates discover this only at the centre and lose the first ten minutes figuring out what the keys do. The 40 (Grade C) or 50 (Grade D) minute window is wide enough to use editing strategically, but tight enough that aimless backtracking eats the buffer.

Knowing the rule is not the same as using it well. Every backspace costs two keystrokes worth of time — one to delete, one to retype — and sometimes more if the correction itself slips. Candidates who clear the cutoff by a comfortable margin typically follow three rules:

• Correct a mistake only when the mistake is obvious the moment it happens — a letter swap, a doubled vowel. Do not scroll back five words to fix something noticed later.
• Never correct a mistake in the middle of a word. Finish the word, then backspace to the error. Breaking rhythm costs more than the mistake itself.
• Leave the last minute untouched. In the final sixty seconds, type through everything — errors included. Partial characters at the end count as mistakes, but unfinished passages leave missing characters that also count as mistakes. Speed wins.

The candidates who fail despite knowing the rule almost always fail from over-correction. They see a typo at the thirty-second mark, backspace ten characters to fix it, lose five seconds, and never make that time back. Practice in both modes — backspace-allowed and strict — so the decision is automatic on exam day.