Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Tiara Talk: Reading Speeds

I tend to "wow" a lot of people with how fast I can get through books...and not just get through them fast but retain the information. It's something about me that has stood out since I was a kid so I'm used to strange looks and the disbelief. It happens.

I also get asked a lot of questions about it. People wanting to know how fast I really read, like while I'm in the middle of an amazing book I actually keep an eye on the timer. Talk about impossible! So, in honor of Angela @ Reading Angel's April Page Count Contest I decided to take a reading speed test just so y'all could know exactly what you're dealing with. :]

[I also blame Twitter because I saw the link for this reading quiz popping up all over the place! Even a few other blogs.]

You read 712 words per minute.
That makes you 185% faster than the national average.

If you maintained this reading speed, you could read

    War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy in 13 hours and 45 minutes
    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling in 1 hour and 48 minutes
    The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien in 11 hours and 12 minutes
    Catch-22 by Joseph Heller in 4 hours and 5 minutes
    Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell in 2 hours and 5 minutes
    The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand in 7 hours and 18 minutes
    The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck in 3 hours and 58 minutes
    Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper in 3 hours and 24 minutes
    A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens in 3 hours and 10 minutes
    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in 2 hours and 34 minutes
    Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte in 2 hours and 32 minutes
    To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee in 2 hours and 19 minutes
    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in 1 hour and 43 minutes
    The Color Purple by Alice Walker in 1 hour and 33 minutes
    All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque in 1 hour and 27 minutes
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll in 37 minutes

Not much to discuss there, huh? Instead I'd love it if you followed the link I'm going to include below and take the test yourself! Come on, it'll be fun! When you're finished, if you don't mind sharing, comment below with your results. :]


Happy reading!

6 comments:

  1. Lol. I was pretty surprised too. Even more so when I saw scores even higher than mine. There are some really fast readers out there.

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  2. I got 846 words per minute... 238% faster than the national average. I don't know though, I'm sure you're actually a much faster reader than me! :P I managed to get all the questions right though, so I guess my eyes didn't just gloss over.

    Don't you find sometimes when you're reading certain books that you just read quicker? If it's heavy content, it tends to take me a while to get through. Usually how long a book takes me to read isn't much of an indication of how good it is... just what I'm in the mood for.

    Great post as usual, you speed reader! <3

    Sonia

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  3. Dayuuuuuuuuuum, Sonia! You could read...like the entire Beasts' Library in a day. LOL.

    And I totally agree. Certain books can take me days/weeks/months to get through if they are a classic or just dense material. Like, despite my love for the book, Jane Eyre has taken me three days to get through twenty chapters. I've had school and other things to do of course but still. And I finally had to set Sense and Sensibility down, about 120 pages away from the end, because I had been dragging it out over a few months.

    Thank you! I'm so glad to know you enjoy my posts. <3

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  4. Wow Ash!!! Reading at my comfortable speed (the speed I actually read my books) I read 420. Now I can read faster, but I feel like I'm rushing and not taking it in and enjoying it as well, so that's obviously not a comfortable comprehension speed for me.

    Also, it could probably be a little faster with a different story...that story they gave me (I don't know if they give the same one to everyone?) was strangely worded. Which also made for slower reading.

    You are a reading speed queen!! I bow down before your excellence ;)

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  5. I may or may not have emitted a slightly fangirl-esque squeal when I saw that you had commented on my blog. Confession: I'm so happy that we are talking now because as a blogger I've looked up to you for a LONG time. And I was too shy to say anything. So yes. Yay! xD

    I really don't think I read THAT fast all of the time though. With certain things I do but I think that speed is more or less for sprints than going long distance. Though I have to admit, I'm tempted to time myself with a few of the books that were mentioned. Lol!

    I think the story is the same for everyone, though I couldn't tell you for sure anything about it now because it just wasn't the type of thing to stick with me.

    Thank you, Angela! :D

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