Select the INCORRECTLY spelt word.

Correct — A. Occurence is the misspelling. The word is spelt occurrence, with a double r as well as the double c.

Rule: when a verb ends in a single vowel plus a single consonant and is stressed on its last syllable, that consonant doubles before a suffix beginning with a vowel.

occur is stressed on -cur, so occur + -ence gives occurr + ence = occurrence. The same doubling produces occurred and occurring.

Harassment, Supersede and Exaggerate are all spelt correctly as printed, so option (a) is the word to mark.

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Harassment — Harassment is correct as printed: one r, double s. The familiar error runs the other way, as 'harrassment', and the paper has not printed that.
• (c)
  Supersede — Supersede is correct. The frequent error is 'supercede', written by analogy with precede and concede, but this word takes -sede.
• (d)
  Exaggerate — Exaggerate is correct: one x, double g. The error candidates half-remember is 'exagerate', which is not on the list.

Four words are printed with no sentence, and one is wrong. The work is knowing which spellings are stable rather than guessing which looks odd.

Three of these are classic looks-wrong-but-is-right words, and the fourth breaks a rule you can state. Occurrence is settled by the consonant-doubling rule, so you need not trust your eye.

Read all four before marking. A near miss like 'Occurence' is far easier to skim past than a word that simply looks foreign.

Key facts

• occurrence has a double c and a double r: occur + -ence, with the r doubled under the stressed-final-syllable rule.
• A final consonant doubles before a vowel suffix when the last syllable is stressed: refer becomes referred, begin becomes beginning, occur becomes occurring.
• harassment, supersede and exaggerate are all spelt correctly in this question as printed.

Common traps

• Marking Harassment because 'harrassment' looks familiar. The single r is the correct spelling.
• Marking Supersede on the strength of precede, recede and concede.
• Stopping at the first word that looks strange instead of checking all four.

No directly related past PYQ was found.