The Supreme Court of India recruits Junior Court Assistants through a multi-stage process, and one of those stages is a typing test on a computer. The numbers people quote for it online are often borrowed from other court exams. This guide uses only what the Supreme Court's own Scheme of Examination (notification dated 4 February 2025) says, explains what each number means in practice, and gives you a way to prepare for it on the Supreme Court JCA typing test page.
If you are preparing for a High Court or district court clerk post instead, stop here and read High Court typing exams: formatting and scoring rules. The Supreme Court JCA test has its own scheme, and mixing the two is the most common mistake we see.
What the 2025 notification actually says
Under the Scheme of Examination in the 4 February 2025 notification, the typing stage is short and specific:
| Requirement | As per the notification |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Mode | Typing test on computer |
| Duration | 10 minutes |
| Minimum speed | 35 words per minute |
| Mistakes allowed | Up to 3% of the total words to be typed |
| What happens next | Candidates who qualify the typing test and the descriptive test are called for interview |
Three things follow from this table, and each one changes how you should practise.
First, both conditions apply at the same time. You need the minimum speed and you need to stay inside the mistake allowance. Typing 50 WPM with 6% mistakes does not qualify; typing 36 WPM with 1% mistakes does.
Second, the notification treats typing as a stage you must clear. It does not describe typing marks or a typing score, and it does not say that a faster candidate ranks higher. Unless your own notification says otherwise, extra speed buys you a safety margin, not merit.
Third, the notification is silent on a lot of practical detail: the passage type, the on-screen layout, whether Backspace is permitted, and how a "mistake" is counted. Those come from the test-day instructions and the evaluation rules, which you will see on your admit card or at the centre. Do not assume them from a coaching PDF.
What "3% of the total words to be typed" means in numbers
The allowance is a percentage of the passage, so it scales with the passage length. A 10-minute passage pitched at 35 WPM contains roughly 350 words. Three per cent of 350 is 10.5, so you can afford about ten mistakes across the whole passage. If the passage is longer, the allowance grows with it; if it is shorter, it shrinks.
Put the other way round: one mistake every 30 to 35 words is the ceiling, not a comfortable target. Candidates who aim exactly at 3% in practice tend to cross it under exam-hall pressure, because nerves, an unfamiliar keyboard and a different screen each add a few errors. Train to stay under 2%, and treat anything above that in a practice session as a session to review, not to celebrate.
Note the wording: the allowance is tied to the words to be typed, which reads as the passage, not the words you managed to type. If you type only 250 of 350 words, your allowance does not shrink to 7.5, but your speed will not reach 35 WPM either. Speed and accuracy are checked separately, so neither can rescue the other.
Why 35 WPM is a floor, not a goal
Thirty-five words per minute over ten minutes is 350 words. Most people who have touch-typed for a few months can do this on a quiet afternoon. The difficulty is doing it on the day, on a centre keyboard, with a legal passage and an invigilator walking past.
A practical target for the exam is 42 to 45 WPM at 98% accuracy in your own practice. That leaves room for the five to eight WPM most candidates lose in the hall and still keeps mistakes well inside the allowance. If you are currently below 30 WPM, follow the four-week plan to cross 35 WPM first; it was written for exactly this kind of 10-minute qualifying bar.
How this differs from other court typing tests
Court typing tests look alike from a distance and are different up close. A few comparisons that matter:
- Delhi High Court (2026 notices): also 10 minutes and 3% mistakes, but the speed is 40 WPM for SPA/PA posts and 35 WPM for Junior Judicial Assistant, and speed is counted in characters with space. Practise on the Delhi High Court page if that is your exam.
- Allahabad High Court RO sheets: a 20-minute paper, a different rhythm altogether. Our Allahabad High Court page is set up for it.
- District and sessions courts: each court sets its own speed and error rules; the 30/25 WPM figures on our district court page are practice targets, not an official cut-off.
- High Court Junior Court Assistant on this site: that page is general High Court and district JCA practice. It is not the Supreme Court pattern, so do not use the two interchangeably.
The Supreme Court test is the shortest and cleanest of these: one language, one duration, one speed, one error cap. That makes it easier to prepare for, and easier to lose on a careless day.
A 10-minute practice protocol
You do not need two hours a day. You need the same ten minutes, taken seriously, most days of the week. Here is a routine that fits the Supreme Court pattern:
- Warm-up (3 minutes): one short accuracy drill with Backspace off. Eyes on the screen, hands on the home row. If you still look at the keys, start with the hand-placement setup for a week before doing anything else.
- Full sitting (10 minutes): one complete attempt on the Supreme Court JCA page, which runs a 10-minute, 35 WPM English session on legal-style text. Do not stop the timer early.
- Review (3 minutes): look at the error list, not the WPM. Group the mistakes: typo, skipped word, wrong punctuation, capitalisation. The group that repeats is next week's drill.
- Twice a week: a second sitting back-to-back with the first, to build the stamina to stay accurate in minutes eight, nine and ten, where most candidates fall apart.
Log Net WPM, accuracy and the mistake count after every sitting. The number that must go down first is the mistake count; speed follows once your error rate is stable. If the words "net" and "gross" are not clear to you, WPM vs CPM explains them in five minutes.
Legal English is its own typing skill
Passages in court tests tend to be formal English with features that generic typing-practice quotes never contain. Train them deliberately:
- Section and article numbers: "Section 482 of the Code" and "Article 32" mean digits in the middle of prose. Most candidates slow down on the number row; practise it.
- Case names: "versus", "v.", party names in capitals, and the full stop after "v". Capitalisation errors count as mistakes.
- Long sentences: legal prose runs long, with semicolons and commas doing structural work. Read one phrase ahead so that punctuation never surprises you.
- Quotation marks and brackets: judgments quote statutes. Opening and closing quotes, brackets and the hyphen in "sub-section" are all single keystrokes that are easy to drop.
If you keep adding errors on these, common typing mistakes and how to fix them covers the fixes for most of them, even though it was written with SSC candidates in mind.
On the day
- Read the on-screen instructions fully before you click Start. They, not this article, decide whether Backspace is allowed and how the passage is laid out.
- Do not retype a line you have already finished. Correct the single word if editing is permitted; otherwise keep going. Ten minutes does not allow for a restart.
- Keep the rhythm steady. A burst of fast typing followed by a pause costs more mistakes than steady 40 WPM does.
- If you finish early and editing is allowed, use the remaining time to proofread from the top. Skipped words are the most common invisible error.
What this article does not claim
TypingHub does not reproduce the Supreme Court's evaluation software, does not know how its software counts a half-typed word, and does not predict cut-offs. The 35 WPM and 3% figures above are from the 4 February 2025 notification, and later cycles can change them. Read the notification and admit card for your own cycle before you rely on any number here, including ours.
When you are ready, run your first full sitting on the Supreme Court JCA typing test, note the mistake count, and start the protocol above from tomorrow.
