How To Improve Spelling In PTE To Get An 80+ Score

No matter what exam you are given, spelling always plays a crucial role. And to score good marks in any exam, you must use the correct spelling.

Just like that, if you plan to take an English language test, you want to get a good score in that you must improve your spelling.

In English language proficiency tests like; IELTS, PTE, Duolingo, and TOEFL, students use a variety of vocabulary for a high score, and doing that, they make spelling errors.

If you are one of those students who are planning to take the English language test and make a lot of spelling mistakes, then don’t worry, you are at the right place. 

In this blog, I will discuss some of the common mistakes students make in spelling and how to improve spelling in PTE. 

The tips I will mention below will not only be helpful in the PTE exam but also improve spelling for other exams.

Let’s get started!

Common Spelling Mistakes In PTE

Sometimes students don’t even notice that they make spelling mistakes that mistakes can take place due to the following reasons; 

• Homophones
• Silent letters
• Double consonants
• Confusing vowels

Homophones

The words that sound the same but have different spelling are homophones. Sometimes students hear a word and in a hurry, they write the homophone of that word instead of the original word.

Here are some examples of homophones;

• “their” and “there”
• “whether” and “weather”
• “to” and “too”

Silent letters

Some words have silent letters in their starting, middle or ending and that can lead students to make some spelling errors as they are a bit confusing.

For example;

• Knight: “k” is silent in this.
• Receipt: “p” is silent in this.
• Doubt: “b” is silent in this.
• Knief: “k” is silent in this.

Double consonants

Some words have double consonants in their spelling that are very hard to remember and can cause mistakes in the PTE exam.

For example:

• Occurrence
• Appalling
• Necessary 

Confusing vowels

There are many words in the English language that have two consecutive vowels and can students sometimes get confused about the order of vowels in those words. 

For example;

• Instead of “friend” students sometimes mistakenly write “freind.”
• Instead of “receive” sometimes students write “recieve.”

How To Improve Spelling In PTE

Before we jump right into the tips, let us first briefly understand where spellings are important in the PTE. The spellings are, of course, important in the writing section. 

In other sections, like the speaking or the reading section, you will be asked to spell a word correctly that is incorrect, but your spelling will directly affect your writing section. 

The PTE writing section asks you to write an essay on an argument given in the question. You will be given just 20 mins to write this essay, and this should have 200-300 words. You will get a word count feature at the bottom of our screen. 

Since the time is limited and the words are precise, you have to take utmost care that you do not make any spelling mistakes in these 200-300 words. Now that you know the basic format of the writing section, let us move into tips on how to improve spelling in PTE. 

• Stop Writing On MS Word
• Make A List Of Hard Words
• Do Not Force Words
• Be Aware Of Synonyms, Antonyms, And Homophones
• Observe

1) Stop Writing On MS Word

First and most important tip on how to improve spelling in PTE is to stop using MS Word. Most of us use MS word or Grammarly for our daily writing tasks.

Although these tools are very effective and can save a lot of time of yours, at this time you should try to avoid these autocorrect tools that automatically identify your spelling mistake and even correct some. 

I am not at all suggesting that you take a paper pen and start to write down, that would not be beneficial for you as the PTE exam is conducted in the computer-based mode. Thus you should have a fast typing speed and good practice to give the test on Keybroad. 

You can write on Notepad or any other program that does not correct your mistakes. If you later want to check your accuracy, you can paste the text into word or Grammarly and easily identify what were your mistakes. 

2) Make A List Of Hard Words

The second and most useful tip on how to improve spelling in PTE is to make a list of hard words and practice them regularly.

Even after practicing or during practice, you would notice many words that you are constantly spelling wrong. You shouldn’t just ignore them, but give these words special attention and practice. 

Write them down in another book and try to learn them. You can also use the old technique of first writing the word, then writing its meaning, then finding its synonym, and lastly, you can write a sentence including that word.

To learn about PTE essential, read our other blog.

3) Do Not Force Words

Many times students tend to use hard vocabulary in their answers which is often good for getting more scores, but if these words are not spelled correctly, then this vocabulary is of no use as it will reduce your score instead of boosting it up. 

You should always try to use good and professional words in your answers and essays but at the time of the exam if you are unable to get a word spelled rightly then do not take a chance and just replace it with an easy synonym that you know the spelling of.

It won’t increase your marks but will also not decrease them. So you can consider this as one of the good tips on how to improve spelling in PTE.

4) Be Aware Of Synonyms, Antonyms, And Homophones

These are the areas that are responsible for most spelling mistakes. Many students do not exactly remember the synonyms and mix them up, which leads to a different meaning of the sentence. 

The same thing goes for antonyms. Homophones are words that sound similar, sometimes even spelled similarly, and have different meanings. Some examples of homophones are:

• ad, add
• ate, eight
• be, bee
• I’ll, aisle, isle
• blew, blue
• buy, by, bye
• cell, sell
• hear, here
• hour, our
• its, it’s

To know How To Improve Fluency In PTE Speaking, read our other blog.

5) Observe

The last tip for how to improve spelling in PTE is to observe. Of course, you cannot observe people speaking and improve your spelling. For this, you will have to observe books and other texts. 

See how the sentences are framed and what synonyms are used where. You can do this while reading any book. There are also a lot of books available specifically to improve spelling, vocabulary, pronunciation, and other skills that are essential for the PTE exam and for any other English language proficiency testing exam for that matter. You can also read a diverse set of books to get more spelling and vocabulary. 

Read our other blog to learn about PTE Speaking Mark Distribution.

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Conclusion

Spellings are hard to get right. They can silently reduce your score, and you will be left wondering what took your marks. 

The mistakes in spelling are mounted as silly mistakes, which means that these were the mistakes that you made in a hurry and could have been avoided very easily. 

Thus, in addition to following the above-mentioned tips on how to improve spelling in PTE (Pearson Test of English), you can also try to review all of your answers and essays. 

Thus reviewing will not only help you to proofread your answer, but you will be surprised to find all the spelling mistakes that you made wrong first. I hope these 5 tips, which are as practical as possible, will help you to improve your spelling in PTE.

To know about the Grammar Rules For PTE Reading, read our other blog.

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