Why spelling costs more marks than you think
In a steno skill test, a spelling mistake is usually counted as half a mistake. That sounds small, but in a 1,000-word transcription, 20 spelling errors add 10 mistakes, which is a fifth of the 5% limit for Grade C. Many candidates who take the dictation well still fail because of words they simply don't know how to spell.
The good news is that exam passages use the same formal vocabulary again and again. Learn the words below, and you'll remove a whole category of mistakes from your transcription.
Indian government exams follow British spelling: honour, labour, programme, centre, defence, judgement in most passages. Follow the spelling used in your exam's passage where it differs.
How to use this list
- Read each group and tick the words you're not 100% sure of.
- Type each ticked word 10 times without looking.
- Next day, ask someone to read the ticked words aloud and type them.
- Keep only the ones you got wrong. Repeat until the list is empty.
Typing them is better than writing them by hand, because the exam is typed and your fingers learn the pattern.
Group 1: Double letters
These are the most common spelling errors in transcription. The trick is knowing which letters double.
| Word | Common mistake |
|---|---|
| accommodation | accomodation |
| commission | comission |
| committee | commitee |
| commitment | committment |
| occurred | occured |
| occurrence | occurence |
| embarrass | embarass |
| necessary | neccessary |
| unnecessary | unneccessary |
| address | adress |
| possession | posession |
| successful | succesful |
| access | acess |
| appropriate | apropriate |
| aggressive | agressive |
| millennium | millenium |
| questionnaire | questionaire |
| recommend | reccomend |
| parallel | paralell |
| till | til |
Group 2: ie or ei
| Word | Common mistake |
|---|---|
| receive | recieve |
| receipt | reciept |
| achieve | acheive |
| believe | beleive |
| brief | breif |
| foreign | foriegn |
| neither | niether |
| seize | sieze |
| weird | wierd |
| perceive | percieve |
Group 3: Government and Parliament words
These appear in almost every passage. Make sure each one is automatic.
- government (not goverment)
- parliament, parliamentary (not parliment)
- legislature, legislative
- constitution, constitutional
- privilege (not priviledge)
- sovereignty (not soverignty)
- democracy, democratic
- amendment (not ammendment)
- ordinance (a law; not ordnance, which means weapons)
- appropriation
- expenditure
- revenue
- subsidy, subsidies
- allocation
- jurisdiction
- bureaucracy (not beaurocracy)
- ministry, ministerial
- secretariat (not secretariate)
- municipal, municipality
- panchayat
Group 4: Legal words
Especially important for court steno exams, but they also appear in SSC passages.
- judgement (also written judgment in legal usage; follow the passage)
- acquittal
- adjourned, adjournment
- affidavit
- allegation, alleged
- appellant
- plaintiff
- defendant
- cognizance
- injunction
- litigation, litigant
- petitioner
- respondent
- tribunal
- verdict
- prosecution
- testimony
- liaison (not liason)
Group 5: Economy and development words
Budget speeches and policy debates are common in dictation.
- agriculture, agricultural
- irrigation
- infrastructure
- employment, unemployment
- inflation
- industrial, industrialisation
- investment
- manufacturing
- entrepreneur (not entreprenuer)
- guarantee (not gaurantee)
- fiscal
- deficit
- per capita
Group 6: Words that sound alike
These aren't spelling errors in the usual sense, but typing the wrong one counts as a mistake.
| Word | Meaning | Don't confuse with |
|---|---|---|
| principal | main; head of a school | principle (a rule) |
| stationary | not moving | stationery (paper, pens) |
| council | a group of people | counsel (advice; a lawyer) |
| complement | something that completes | compliment (praise) |
| affect | to influence (verb) | effect (result, noun) |
| advice | noun | advise (verb) |
| practice | noun | practise (verb, British) |
| licence | noun (British) | license (verb) |
| dependent | relying on | dependant (a person who depends) |
| capital | city; money | capitol (US building) |
| lose | to misplace | loose (not tight) |
| than | comparison | then (time) |
| their | belonging to them | there (place) |
| whether | if | weather (climate) |
| precede | to come before | proceed (to go on) |
Group 7: Other words that catch people out
- separate (not seperate)
- definitely (not definately)
- independent (not independant)
- maintenance (not maintainance)
- pronunciation (not pronounciation)
- conscience, conscious
- calendar (not calender)
- February
- Wednesday
- schedule
- colleague
- rhythm
Build your own list
The words you personally misspell matter most. Every time you check a transcription, add any spelling mistakes to a personal list. After a month, you'll have a short list of the exact words you need, and you can revise it once a week.
Steno Daily makes this easy: after each dictation, your transcription is checked word by word and spelling errors are marked as half mistakes, so you can see exactly which words to add. Read more about how mistakes are counted, and for other common errors, see 12 transcription mistakes to stop making.