PA/SA DEST: 1,000 Key Depressions in 15 Minutes, Explained

The Data Entry Skill Test is the second and last stage of the PA/SA exam. It is taken on a computer, it lasts 15 minutes, it carries 25 marks, and it is qualifying only: the marks do not enter the merit list, which is drawn on Paper-I alone. But a candidate who misses the qualifying mark is out, whatever they scored in Paper-I, so it is the one stage where a strong candidate can lose everything in a quarter of an hour.

The standard has changed three times since 2019, and guides still print the old figures. For every exam notified on or after 1 January 2023, including the 2026 exam, the PA/SA test is 1,000 key depressions, plus or minus 5%, in 15 minutes. The Postman and Mail Guard test is 600.

Directorate letter No. 17-08/2018-SPN-I dated 19.12.2022; TN memo 27.08.2026.

So the typing load went down in 2021 and back up in 2023, and the bar to pass went down and back up with it. The present rule asks for more than the 2021 rule on both counts: a quarter more text, and 75% instead of 60% for a general candidate. Anyone relying on the advice of a colleague who passed in 2021 or 2022 is preparing for an easier test than the one they will sit.

A key depression is a single key press — letters, figures, spaces and punctuation all count. The ±5% is the tolerance on the length of the passage. The per-minute figures below are our arithmetic from the official totals, and the words-per-minute column uses the common typing convention of five key presses to a word; the Department does not state either.

Thirteen or fourteen words a minute sounds slow, and for someone who types every day at a counter it is. But the test is on an unfamiliar machine, with an unfamiliar passage that often mixes figures and names, under exam nerves, and the mark depends on accuracy as well as completion. The circulars do not publish the formula that turns speed and errors into a mark out of 25, and we will not invent one. Treat the target as the speed you must reach with almost no corrections, not the speed you reach on a good day.

Not everyone who qualifies in Paper-I sits the DEST. The 19.12.2022 letter fixes the number called at three times the vacancies declared at notification. If the vacancies are revised before the Paper-I result, the revised figure is notified and the shortlist is three times that; a revision after the result is allowed only in exceptional circumstances with the approval of the Director General of Postal Services.

Three times the vacancies is a generous shortlist. A circle with 100 posts calls about 300 candidates to type. The DEST itself is a gate rather than a race: you are not competing with other typists, only against the qualifying mark. Being called is not the same as being selected, though — at most one in three of those called can get a post (our arithmetic from the 3× rule), because selection still goes down the Paper-I merit list (Paper-I plus Paper-II for Postman and Mail Guard) until the vacancies run out.

In each case the DEST came three to seven weeks after Paper-I, once the answer key was final and the shortlist drawn, and the final result followed within days. That gap is your preparation window if you did not start typing practice earlier. Several circles also collect the cadre and division preference form at the DEST — the Karnataka 2026 notification says so in terms — so arrive with your preferences decided.

Our suggestion, not an official one. Practise in 15-minute blocks, not in one-minute bursts, because stamina and accuracy fall off late in a timed passage. Use passages that mix names, addresses, figures and punctuation, since that is the character of postal data. Count key depressions honestly, including spaces. Record how many keys you had to correct in each block, and cut that number before you push for speed. When your 15-minute total clears 1,050 with only a handful of corrections, you have a margin over the top of the tolerance band.