You are scored separately on your spelling in PTE Academic Score Card and it affects your overall score too! Spelling is crucial, we all write these days so one has to focus on spellings. If you think you are the only committing spelling mistakes because you are not a native English speaker then you are wrong. Plenty of Native English Speakers find it difficult.

Why is it difficult to avoid spelling mistakes? Well, English contains a vast library of words and it’s difficult to memorize spellings even if you know those words. Different “English” might have different spellings and it can be confusing. For example, “color” in America is spelling “colour” in UK. English borrows words from different culture and languages, this is one of the reason it might be difficult for a people having English as a mother tongue to grasp spelling correctly.

But that’s the problems, you came here for solutions so lets know how to avoid spelling mistakes!

Check & Edit!

Many times it’s a case of not checking properly. You may actually know the spellings correctly but wrote the wrong ones. This happens with even the people who regularly writes. Speed typing can result in such errors or simply not paying enough attention. Solution? Make sure to recheck your work after you are done writing.

Learn Basic Rules

It’s difficult to learn spellings individually but there are some basic rules that you can learn to be more of a perfectionist. But of course, even these “rules” come with exceptions so you have to remember those too. These rules may include but not limited to:

1. I before E except when it’s a C: Examples: relieve, relief, reprieve. When there is a c preceding the ei: receipt, receive, ceiling, deceive, conceive.
2. When forming the plural of a word which ends with a y that is preceded by a vowel, add “s”: toy, toys; monkey, monkeys.
3. Oi and Oy: Use oi in the middle of a word & use oy at the end of a word. Examples: boil, soil, toil, boy, toy.
4. When you add a suffix which starts with E (such as -ed, -er, or -est) to a word that ends in Y, then Y usually changes to an I.

Learn Commonly Misspelled Words

We use these words every day but their spellings are simply tricky. It would be a smart choice to learn the spellings of these words separately. Some words that are commonly misspelled:

1. Acquire: Misspelled as Aquire, Adquire
2. Adultery: Misspelled as Adultary
3. Embarrass: Misspelled as Embarass
4. Beginning: Misspelled as Begining
5. Occurrence: Mispelled as Occurrance, Occurence

The Words You Use Often

Everyone has different vocabulary range, make sure whatever words you already know are upto the correct spelling standards. You can write down the complex words you know and check if you are spelling them correctly by comparing your written words with a dictionary. When you are learning a new word, make sure to memorize the spellings correctly and avoid spelling mistakes.

Make Learning Fun!

You can always put your internet connection to good use by taking our PTE Academic Mock Tests or for spelling improvement, you can play games like scrabble, Spelling Bee etc. Obviously, you can play offline board version of these games too. Learning with friends through a game could be fun and fruitful, so why not?

Do you have your own tips? Share in the comments and don’t forget to book PTE Academic with our discounts and free study material if you haven’t already.