How to Improve Shorthand Speed Without Losing Accuracy

1. Find your honest speed

Take a full-length dictation at the speed you claim to write at, transcribe it and check accuracy. Your honest speed is the highest speed where accuracy stays comfortably above your exam's passing mark, not the highest speed you can survive.

2. Attack hesitation, not speed

Collect the words you got wrong. Almost always the same twenty or thirty words appear again and again. Drill those outlines on paper for five minutes a day; that single habit moves speed more than extra dictations.

3. Use repetition deliberately

Take the same passage three days in a row at the same speed. The third attempt shows what your speed feels like when hesitation is gone — that is the sensation you are trying to reproduce at the next speed band.

4. Step up in small increments

Move up by five to ten words per minute at a time. Big jumps produce notes you cannot read back, and unreadable notes teach nothing.

5. Practise transcription separately

Many candidates lose marks after the dictation ends. Keyboard speed and clean formatting are trainable in their own right, so keep at least one typing or formatting test in your weekly routine.

Frequently asked questions

How often should I increase my dictation speed?

Only when your accuracy at the current speed stays consistently high across several full-length passages.