Spelling & Proofreading

Key Points

Good spelling is very important for IELTS success

Spelling skills are critical is an important part of any writing. Spelling errors are penalised in IELTS writing papers under the Lexical Resource criteria.

It is important that you learn how to correctly spell words that you commonly make mistakes with. See the ‘Listening’ section of this book for further advice on spelling and a list of common spelling problems. 

There is no easy fix for spelling problems; written or verbal repetition is the best way, although reading a lot can help too.


Proofread to check your mistakes

It is vital that you spend whatever time you have remaining at the end of the test to do a quick proofread or edit of your work. 

Of course, you won’t have time to make major changes to your ideas or your essay structure; you must ensure that they are OK during your 3-minute plan.

But you may be able to make some small changes to your grammar, spelling, capitalisation and so on. Any time spent on proofreading is time well spent and can result in important improvements to your essay.

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