Spelling: Patterns, Rules, and Homophones
The skill map
Spelling items typically ask you to spot the misspelled word among four options or to choose the correct spelling for a blank. The patterns that pay off are: consonant doubling after a short vowel (running, stopped, beginning); dropping a silent e before a vowel suffix (hope → hoping, but hopeful); changing y to i (carry → carried, but carrying); i before e except after c (receive, believe, with exceptions such as weird and their); the -able/-ible, -ance/-ence, and -tion/-sion families; plurals (boxes, babies, knives, potatoes); and homophones (their/there/they're, to/too/two, its/it's, principle/principal, stationary/stationery).
Traps worth naming
- Sound-alike substitutions. Misspellings often produce a real word: definitely for defiantly, quiet for quite, loose for lose.
- Double-letter slips. Necessary (one c, two s), accommodate (two c, two m), occurred (two r, two c).
- Swallowed syllables. Wednesday, February, library, environment, and surprise (no first r).
- Over-applying a rule. i before e fails after c and in words like weigh and height.
Rule of thumb
Say the word syllable by syllable in an exaggerated way and spell each chunk aloud, then check the chunk that is hardest to hear. Most errors land on the unstressed vowel, not the consonants.
Worked example
Is it seperate or separate? Pronounce it "sep-AH-rate": the middle syllable clearly carries an a, so the spelling is separate - there is "a rat" in the middle of separate.