Keyboard Shortcuts Practice

How this lesson works

Instead of typing, you press the real shortcut. The drill shows an action — “Copy”, “Jump to the next word”, “Select to end of line” — and moves on as soon as you press the right combination. Press the wrong one and it tells you exactly what you pressed, so you can correct it straight away.

• Click Start the drill, then keep your hands on the keyboard.
• Choose Windows / Linux or Mac — on a Mac the drill expects ⌘ Cmd and ⌥ Option where Windows uses Ctrl.
• Turn off Show keys once you know them: that’s memory mode, the real test.
• Press Esc to skip a shortcut you don’t know yet; it goes on your review list at the end.

What you’ll practise

• Editing: copy, cut, paste, paste as plain text, undo, redo, select all, save, find, bold and underline.
• Moving: jump word by word, go to the start or end of a line, and to the top or bottom of a document.
• Selecting and deleting: select the next word, select to the end of the line, and delete a whole word with Ctrl+Backspace (⌥ Delete on Mac).

Shortcuts the drill can’t catch

Some shortcuts belong to the browser or the operating system, and a web page can’t (and shouldn’t) intercept them — Ctrl+W would simply close this tab. Learn these outside the drill:

• Ctrl+T / Ctrl+W — open and close a browser tab.
• Ctrl+Shift+T — reopen the tab you just closed.
• Alt+Tab (⌘ Tab on Mac) — switch between open apps.
• Win+V — clipboard history on Windows.

Pressing combinations cleanly

• Hold the modifier (Ctrl, Shift, Alt, ⌘) first, tap the key, then let go — don’t try to hit everything at the same instant.
• Press Ctrl with your pinky and keep the rest of the hand on the home row, so you can go straight back to typing.
• The full list with Windows and Mac columns is in our post on keyboard shortcuts to type faster.