I originally found this test over at Tempest Books (thanks for sharing, Miranda!), and thought it was so awesome I wanted to do a full post about my own results. I’ve always wondered how my reading speed compared to other readers! I know that I can finish a 300 page book in roughly 3 hours on average, but it was very interesting to see it broken down. Without further ado…
(The first time I took the test I got 513 with 100% accuracy. The excerpt it gave me made absolutely NO sense, and I think that slowed me down! The second time, coincidentally, was Alice in Wonderland.)
I’m kind of proud of the fact that I read faster than most average adults. XD
What REALLY ticks me off? Of course I have the eReader with the lowest battery life (Kindle Fire). Of course.
And now for the cool part…
Statistics
Maintaining that speed, here’s how long it would take me to read:
- War & Peace (1,392 pages) = 15 hrs 15 min, or 1.52 pgs/min
- Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone (310 pgs) = 2 hrs, or 2.5 pgs/min
- Lord of the Rings (1,178 pgs) = 12 hrs 25 min, or 1.58 pgs/min
- Catch 22 (453 pgs) = 4 hrs 31 min, or 1.67 pgs/min
- 1984 (326 pgs) = 2 hrs 19 min, or 2.35 pgs/min
- The Fountainhead (720 pgs) = 8 hrs 5 min, 1.49 pgs/min
- Grapes of Wrath (496 pgs) = 4 hrs 24 min, or 1.88 pgs/min
- Last of the Mohicans (410 pgs) = 3 hrs 47 min, or 1.8 pgs/min
- A Tale of Two Cities (489 pgs) = 3 hrs 31 min, or 2.31 pgs/min
- Adventures of Huck Finn (180 pgs) = 2 hrs 51 min, or 1.05 pgs/min
- Wuthering Heights (464 pgs) = 2 hrs 48 min, or 2.76 pgs/min
- To Kill a Mockingbird (324 pgs) = 2 hrs 34 min, or 2.1 pgs/min
- Catcher in the Rye (277 pgs) = 1 hr 54 min, or 2.42 pgs/min
- The Color Purple (295 pgs) = 1 hr 44 min, or 2.84 pgs/min
- All Quiet on the Western Front (296 pgs) = 1 hr 36 min, or 3.1 pgs/min
- Lord of the Flies (182 pgs) = 1 hr 33 min, or 1.96 pgs/min
- Slaughterhouse Five (215 pgs) = 1 hr 17 min, or 2.8 pgs/min
- Adventures in Wonderland (92 pgs) = 41 min, or 2.24 pgs/min
- Wizard of Oz (156 pgs) = 1 hour, or 2.6 pgs/min
- War of the Worlds (192 pgs) = 1 hr 34 min, or 2.08 pgs/min
- The Bible (1,590 pgs) = 20 hrs 11 min, or 1.31 pgs/min
Average pages/min = 2.11
Pretty cool, right? (Not that I would WANT to read most of these, and many of these I was forced to read in HS and either hated it *coughcough*CatcherintheRye*cough* or didn’t actually read it because I just couldn’t do it *coughcough*GrapesofWrath*cough*) And honestly, if the book is seriously boring, it would make that time double!
Looking at the times vs. pages some seem a little off. My pages per minute vary from 1 to 3, depending on the book. I don’t know if the actual word count or the word size plays a part in that or not. It’s sad that I could finish the first Harry Potter in 2 hours and I still haven’t read it….
Basically, if I had the time (and the attention span, ha) to dedicate even 3 hours per day to reading, I could knock out 250+ books a year. Wouldn’t that be something?!
[Related: How long it takes to read the world’s most popular books (based on the average person’s reading speed) HOLY CRAP GAME OF THRONES HOLY CRAP]
Take the test! How fast can YOU read?
Woah…I got 986. But I only got 2/3 for the comprehension. Woot! I feel like a super speed reader. ;-) I always read fast, but it does depend on the book. Like I find myself super speeding through contemporaries, but not so much for epic fantasies. It depends how much I need to concentrate. ;)
Holy crap, you read super fast!!
Cool, thanks for sharing! I’ve been wondering about this because I used to think I’m a fast reader since I was always one of the first who was done reading a text in class, but then something made me wonder whether that was actually true.
Seems I’m not actually that fast a reader, I took the test three times and my results were that I’m around 30-50 % faster than the average reader. I did get all of the questions right (even when I didn’t think I knew the answer) and I could have gone faster, but I tried to really read it at my usual reading speed. It turns out, I get distracted a lot haha. The third time, for example, I was reading Alice in Wonderland and Alice was wondering something like what’s the point of books without pictures or conversations, so I got side-tracked thinking about what other books there are and had to force myself to keep reading instead.
I’m wondering whether the results would be different if they used more modern texts and whether it’s different when you already know the book etc. I know I can take ages to read a book if I don’t particularly like it and that I read a lot faster when I’m already immersed in the story, so it would be interesting to see a test where you can read on for a while instead of just reading the one page. I’m also interested in whether the language would make a difference for me since English isn’t my native language, but I do read almost exclusively in English.
I’m sure there’s a lot of factors that would affect the reading speed – which means that this test isn’t 100% accurate. But, it’s a cool to get a general idea! I get distracted easily, too, so it usually takes me MUCH longer to finish a book than my results say XD
I did this test when they just made it, and got about 600 as well. Although I didn’t need the test to know I read faster than most adults, when we used to have to read a text in class I would have to wait for the others to finish, sometimes for several minutes.
It’s quite useful to read so quickly, especially if your retention and accuracy doesn’t suffer from it. Of course, as a book lover it means you can read ALL the books in less time :D
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