In the visual editor, if I hold down Shift and then press the right arrow key, I'm able to select the text from left to right, just like any GUI text editor. However if I hold down Shift and then press the left arrow key, I'm unable to select the text from right to left: the cursor won't go past the current letter. This textbox is an example of this behavior.
Topic on VisualEditor/Feedback
Hey there. Shift+arrows works for me. Can you let us know about your browser (+version) and operating system? Thank you.
I tried myself, and found it works with Firefox, but not with IE 11. My OS is Win7 Pro.