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Ch. 1: The Period Segment 1 of 9
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Dickens opens with the most famous sentence in English literature — and its elaborate parallelism is a typing workout before the story even begins. That rhythm governs the entire novel: long clauses mirror each other across commas and semicolons, building to payoffs that reward sustained concentration. The French Revolution setting introduces vocabulary like "guillotine", "aristocracy", and "insurrection" alongside Dickens' trademark character names — Jarvis Lorry, Sydney Carton, Madame Defarge. Typed end to end the three passages here run about 680 words — close to 17 minutes at 40 WPM, which brackets the 10–15 minute duration of SSC CHSL and CPCT exam passages and makes this the most exam-relevant text in the library for English candidates. The Dickensian sentence structure — never simple, always rhythmic — trains your fingers to maintain flow through heavy punctuation without losing place. Progress saves after every segment, so a passage a day is a manageable preparation routine.
Also try: Moby Dick · Frankenstein · All 20 books
This practice set contains 3 passages from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, split into 9 typing segments — about 679 words, roughly 17 minutes of typing at 40 WPM. Your position saves in your browser after every segment, so you can stop and resume without an account.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.
— A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens