What's the world 'comeing' to? GCSE students have the spelling skills of seven-year-olds
Teenagers sitting English GCSEs are unable to spell basic words expected of seven-year-olds, an exam board has warned.
They misspell 'looked' and 'was' and confuse similar-sounding words such as 'know' and 'no', and 'their' and 'there.'
They have particular trouble knowing when to use the letter 'e'. This leads to spellings such as 'unnaturely', 'comeing', ' slightley', 'angrey' and 'inevitabely.'
There are ongoing concerns over spelling standards among students (File photo)
The findings from Cambridge Assessment, which owns the OCR exam board, come despite year-on-year grade inflation.
This year, 15.5 per cent of English GCSE entries across the exam boards were graded A or A*, compared with 15.3 per cent last year.
The researchers examined 60 exam papers across different grade boundaries.
While 97 per cent of words were spelled correctly, many pupils were unable to manage rudimentary words.
They believed that 'looked' ended with a 't' and that 'was' had an 'h' after the 'w'.
Some words were so badly misspelled as to be almost unrecognisable, such as 'gourges' ( gorgeous) and 'angshuse' (anxious).
Ian McNeilly, of the National Association for the Teaching of English, said it was possible to achieve high grades in exams with poor spelling.
As a result, teachers often overlooked spelling in favour of grade-inflating skills.
He said: 'It's an ongoing battle that isn't helped by wider society.'
