In order to be a successful health professional, you have to express ideas clearly and accurately. Because written expression is an important part of your ability to communicate, your nursing school entrance exam will contain a spelling section. In the Verbal Ability section, you will not be required to spell out words, but rather, you will be asked to identify the correct spelling of a word from four choices.
This chapter is designed to help you refresh your spelling skills by teaching you rules you can use to spell your best. You'll learn strategies to help you spell words with tricky letter combinations, unusual plurals, prefixes, and hyphenated and compound words.
What Spelling Questions Are Like
The spelling part of the Verbal Ability section of your exam will test your capacity to spell correctly and recognize properly and improperly spelled words. For example, you may be given four differently spelled versions of the same word and asked to find the choice that is spelled correctly.
- Select the correctly spelled word.
- peice
- piece
- peece
- peise
The correct answer is choice b, piece. Knowing the rule for when to use ie or ei could have helped you answer this question. Read on to learn the rule.
Your exam might also present you with a set of different words and ask you to pick out the one word that is spelled incorrectly. For example:
- Choose the misspelled word.
- destructive
- decisive
- distinguished
- There is no misspelled word.
If your spelling skills are sharp, you know that the correct answer is choice d; all three choices are spelled correctly.
Another version of this question type may ask you to find the correctly spelled word from a group of misspelled words. When you are taking your exam, always be sure to read each question carefully so you know exactly what the question is asking.
How to Prepare for Spelling Questions
Reading as much as you can, using your eyes to look at words carefully, visualizing the words, listening for the sounds of words, and learning the most common prefixes, suffixes, and roots—these are all simple and effective ways to naturally improve your spelling skills. But if you want to ensure that you ace the spelling portion of your entrance exam, nothing beats learning the rules.
Spelling Rules
Most of the spelling questions found on your nursing school entrance exam will test your knowledge of spelling rules, so getting a good grasp on these rules is essential. Following are the most common rules the test will cover.
ie and ei
If you've never heard the old rhyme, "I before e except after c, or when sounding like a as in neighbor or weigh," be sure to learn it now—it works. Another way to think about ie vs. ei is to remember that you use ie to make a long e sound and ei to make a long a sound. Words with the long e sound include: wield, fierce, and cashier. Words with the long a sound include: eight, vein, and deign.
- Choose the correctly spelled word.
- yeild
- mischeivous
- achieve
- percieve
If you remember the rhyme and the long a/long e rule above, it's easy to see the correct answer is choice c, achieve.
But beware! There are some words that are exceptions to this rule. Memorize the following words so you'll recognize them if they come up on the exam.
| friend |
piety |
fiery |
| quiet |
notoriety |
society |
| science |
ancient |
deficient |
| conscience |
either |
seize |
| weird |
sheik |
seizure |
| leisure |
height |
sleight |
| stein |
seismology |
heifer |
| their |
foreign |
forfeit |
| neither |
protein |
Fahrenheit |
| Codeine |
ia and ai
Use ai when the vowel combination makes the sound "uh," like the word villain. Use ia when each vowel is pronounced separately, like the word median.
- Which of the following words is misspelled?
- guardain
- Britain
- controversial
- There is no misspelled word.
Choice a is spelled incorrectly. In the word guardian, the i and a are pronounced separately—guard-I-an. Therefore, ia should be used.
Other Two-Vowel Combinations
Another grade-school rhyme will help you here: "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." This holds true most of the time. Let's break down the rhyme to fully understand it. "When two vowels go walking" refers to a two-vowel combination in a word. For example, abstain, cheap, foe, and ruin. "The first one does the talking" means that in the two-vowel combinations, only the first vowel is pronounced, and the second one is silent. In the case of our examples, you hear the long a in abstain, but not the i. In cheap, you hear the long e but not the a. Similarly, in foe, you hear the long o but not the e, and in ruin, you hear the long u but not the i.
Here are some more examples of words that follow the two-vowels rule:
| plead |
float |
| woe |
repeat |
| boat |
gear |
| treat |
suit |
| steal |
read |
| chaise |
bead |
| moat |
heat |
- Choose the correctly spelled word.
- nuisance
- niusance
- nuicanse
- niucanse
The correct answer is choice a, nuisance. Say this word out loud. It sounds like new-sance, right? You hear the long u, but not the i, The first vowel does the talking here, so the correct combination must be ui.
When to Drop the Final e
Drop the final e before adding any ending that begins with a vowel, such as -ed, -ing, and -able. Some examples are biked and baking. Keep the final e when adding endings that begin with consonants, such as -ly or -ful. Some examples are carefully and gamely.
There are a few exceptions to this rule. You keep the final e when adding an ending that begins with a vowel if:
- You need to protect pronunciation (show that a preceding vowel should be long, for example, as in hoe + ing = hoeing not hoing).
You will drop the final e when adding an ending that begins with a consonant if:
- Choose the misspelled word.
- placed
- woeful
- truely
- There is no misspelled word.
The misspelled word is found in choice c, truely. The correct spelling is truly. This word is an example of an exception to the rule. Usually, when adding an ending that begins with a consonant (in this case, -ly), you keep the final e, unless it follows a u or w. In the word true, the letter e does indeed follow the letter u, so when adding true + ly, drop the final e: truly.
When to Keep a Final y or Change it to i
When a final y follows a consonant, change the y to i when adding any ending, except -ing. When the final y follows a vowel, it does not change. This rule applies to all endings, even plurals.
When the final y is preceded by a vowel, you do not change it to an i. For example:
enjoy—enjoyed, enjoying, enjoys employ—employed, employing, employs
pray—prayed, praying, prays delay—delayed, delaying, delays
- Find the misspelled word.
- holiness
- queasyness
- spying
- There is no misspelled word.
The rule states that when a final y follows a consonant, you must change the y to i when adding any ending (except -ing). The final y in queasy is preceded by a consonant (letter s), so when the ending -ness is added, the y should change to i: queasiness. Therefore, choice b is misspelled.
Adding Endings to Words with a Final c
Add a k after a final c before any ending that begins with e, i, or y. All other endings do not require a k.
- Choose the correctly spelled word.
- trafficer
- panicy
- historical
- havoced
Only choice c, historical, is spelled correctly. Remember, a k is required after a final c when an ending that begins with, i, or y is added. So the other choices should be trafficker, panicky, and havocked.
One of the difficulties of spelling in English is creating plurals. Unfortunately, you can't always simply add the letter -s to the end of the word to signal more than one.
When to Use -s or -es to Form Plurals
There are two simple rules that govern most plurals.
- Most nouns add -s to make plurals.
- If a noun ends in a sibilant sound (s, ss, z, ch, x, sh), add -es.
The following are some examples of plurals:
| cars |
faxes |
dresses |
| computers |
indexes |
churches |
| books |
lunches |
guesses |
| skills |
dishes |
buzzes |
Exceptions
Remember from the last lesson that when a word ends in a y preceded by a consonant, the y changes to i when you add -es.
Plurals for Words That End in o
If a final o follows another vowel, you need to add only an -s.
When the final o follows a consonant rather than a vowel, there is no rule to guide you in choosing -s or -es. You just have to learn the individual words.
The following words form a plural with -s alone:
The following words take -es:
When in doubt about whether to add -s or -es to a word, look it up in the dictionary.
Plurals That Don't Use -s or -es
There are many words that don't simply use -s or -es to form plurals. These are usually words that still observe the rules of the languages from which they were adopted. For instance, in Latin words, -um becomes -a, -us becomes -i, and in Greek words, -sis becomes -ses. Most of these plurals are part of your reading, speaking, and listening vocabularies. A good way to remember these plurals is by saying the words aloud, because you may remember them more easily if you listen to the sound of the spelling.
- Choose the correctly spelled word.
- pianoes
- tomatos
- deers
- spies
Only choice d, spies, is spelled correctly. The correct spelling of choices a and b is pianos and tomatoes. These words belong to the group of plurals that has to be learned individually. Choice c is an exception. It belongs to the group of plurals that do not use -s/-es endings. The plural form of deer is deer.
Homonyms
Homonyms are words that sound the same but are spelled differently. Many of these words have just one change in the vowel or vowel combination. There's no rule about these words so you'll simply have to memorize them.
Here are some examples of word pairs that can be troublesome. Often, the two words in a homophone pair are a different part of speech. Take a look at the following examples:
| affect/effect |
led/lead |
| altar/alter |
minor/miner |
| bare/bear |
passed/past |
| bloc/block |
peal/peel |
| cite/site |
piece/peace |
| cord/chord |
sheer/shear |
| coarse/course |
stationery/stationary |
| descent/dissent |
weak/week |
| dual/duel |
which/witch |
| heal/heel |
write/right |
Since the meanings of these homonyms are usually very different, context within a sentence is probably the best way to differentiate between these words.
Examples in Context
He led a dual (adjective) life as a spy.
He fought a duel (noun) with his great enemy.
He had to alter (verb) his clothes after he lost weight.
The bride smiled as she walked toward the altar (noun).
Prefixes
Generally, when you add a prefix to a root word, neither the root nor the prefix changes spelling:
un- + prepared = unprepared
mal- + nutrition = malnutrition
sub- + traction = subtraction
mis- + informed = misinformed
This rule applies even when the root word begins with the same letter as the prefix. Generally, you use both consonants, but let your eye be your guide. If it looks funny, it's probably not spelled correctly. The following are some examples of double consonants that are correct:
- Choose the correctly spelled word.
- ilogical
- illogicall
- illogicle
- illogical
Only choice d, illogical, is spelled correctly. Remember that in the majority of cases, when you add a prefix to a root word (il- + logical), neither the root nor the prefix changes spelling, even when the root word begins with the same letter as the prefix.
Practice Questions
Here are some practice spelling questions. The answers follow.
Choose the correctly spelled word in questions 11–15.
-
- magically
- magickelly
- majicelly
- magicaly
-
- beleif
- bilief
- belief
- beleaf
-
- nieghbor
- neihbor
- niehbor
- neighbor
-
- eficient
- eficeint
- efficient
- efficeint
-
- collaborate
- colaborate
-
collaborat
- colabarate
Find the misspelled word in questions 16–20.
-
- women
- people
- babys
- There is no misspelled word.
-
- radios
- leaves
- alumni
- There is no misspelled word.
-
- anouncement
- advisement
- description
- There is no misspelled word.
-
- omission
- aisle
- litrature
- There is no misspelled word.
-
- oases
- tomatoes
- heroes
- gooses
Answers to Practice Questions
- a. magically
- c. belief
- d. neighbor
- c. efficient
- a. collaborate
- c. The correct spelling is babies.
- d. There is no misspelled word.
- a. The correct spelling is announcement.
- c. The correct spelling is literature.
- d. The correct spelling is geese.
Tips for Answering Verbal Ability Questions
- Practice using the sample questions in this chapter.
- Read widely to improve your general vocabulary and spelling.
- Say the words silently to yourself. If it sounds wrong, it probably is wrong.
- Dissect the words to find their roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
- Learn the rules of spelling and memorize words that are exceptions.
Additional Resources
If you'd like to improve your verbal ability, your best resource is your public or college library. Any challenging reading will improve your vocabulary and spelling, but following are some LearningExpress books specifically about building those skills.
- Vocabulary and Spelling Success, 3rd Edition
- 1001 Vocabulary and Spelling Questions
- Goof-Proof Spelling
- 501 Synonym and Antonym Questions
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From Nursing School Entrance Exam. Copyright © 2009 by LearningExpress, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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