Oral English (Test of Orals)
NECO's Test of Orals (Paper 3) checks how well you hear and describe spoken English. Items ask you to identify vowel or consonant sounds in words, choose a word that rhymes, pick the correctly stressed syllable, or recognise intonation patterns and minimal pairs. Spelling is a poor guide here - many items are designed to catch candidates who answer by sight.
Sounds to know
- Monophthongs (12): /iː ɪ e æ ɑː ɒ ɔː ʊ uː ʌ ɜː ə/.
- Diphthongs (8): /eɪ aɪ ɔɪ aʊ əʊ ɪə eə ʊə/.
- Consonants (24), including the contrasts /θ/–/ð/, /ʃ/–/ʒ/, /tʃ/–/dʒ/ and /l/–/r/.
Stress and rhyme
- Two-syllable nouns and adjectives usually take first-syllable stress (PREsent, TAble), while verbs of the same shape take second (preSENT).
- Words ending in -tion, -ic, -ical, -ity stress the syllable immediately before the suffix: phoTOgraphy, ecoNOMic.
- Rhyme depends on the sound from the stressed vowel onward, not on spelling.
Worked example
Which word rhymes with 'though'? A. through B. toe C. tough D. cough Answer: B. toe. Reasoning: though is /ðəʊ/ and toe is /təʊ/ - the same final vowel-plus-glide. Through is /θruː/, tough is /tʌf/, cough is /kɒf/. Through looks closest on the page but shares no final sound, which is why spelling-led guesses fail.
Traps
- Choosing by spelling (through/though, cough/though).
- Confusing /ɪə/ and /eə/ in here/hair.
- Missing the stress shift in derivatives (PHOtograph → phoTOgraphy).
- Overlooking silent letters in debt, plumber, island.