3 spelling mistakes you must avoid

No more losing marks in listening and writing modules

by Kasra Sharifan | Jul 13, 2019 | Listening, Writing

You may lose marks in listening and writing modules of IELTS if you do not spell words correctly. But these 3 rules will stop you from making some common mistakes:

Rule #1

Capital letters

Days and Months: Monday, Friday, June, April
Proper nouns i.e. names of people and places: James, Angela, Kuala Lumpur
Titles of people: Mr. Smith, Dr. Broody
Names of cities, countries, nationalities and languages: Seoul, Ghana, Australian, Thai
First letter of the first word of each sentence: Many universities accept IELTS.
Abbreviations of English words: BP, MSc, IELTS

Rule #2

“I” before “E” except after “C“

believe, friend
receive, ceiling
If the e+i are pronounced /ei/, the rule does not apply. For example: eight, neighbor
Other exceptions: either, neither, leisure

Rule #3

Doubling consonants

When adding a suffix, sometimes we need to double the final consonant of a word. It shows that the vowel before it has a short sound.
For example: slim (short /i/ sound) and slime (long /a?/ sound).

To keep the short /i/ sound in slim, double the last consonant before you add a suffix: slimmed, slimmer, slimmest.
If the word ends in two consonants don’t double the final consonant: talent → talented
If the word contains more than one syllable, only double the final consonant only if the last syllable is stressed: occur → occurred
This rule does not apply if the last syllable is not stressed: happen → happened, listen→ listened

Kasra Sharifan

Co-founder and CFO

British Council certified English teacher, IDP-trained IELTS instructor, content writer, editor-in-chief, co-founder, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at IELTS Juice Online Academy.