In the following sentence, four words are underlined out of which one word is misspelt. Identify the INCORRECTLY spelt word. I felt absolutely (A) fit at the summit. My mind was absolutely clear.(B) I didn’t feel tired, I felt exhelarated. (C)It was a very clear sensation.(D)

Correct — A. The misspelt word is exhelarated, the word carrying label (C). The correct spelling is exhilarated — h-i-l, not h-e-l.

The stem is Latin hilaris, cheerful, the same root that gives hilarious, and that i is the letter the misspelling loses.

absolutely, clear and sensation are all spelt correctly. What the paper wants is the label, C, which it prints as option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  A — Label (A) sits on absolutely, spelt a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y. The paper prints the same word again in the next sentence, spelt the same way both times.
• (c)
  B — Label (B) closes the clause My mind was absolutely clear, and clear is correctly spelt. Nothing in that clause is wrong.
• (d)
  D — Label (D) closes It was a very clear sensation, and sensation is correctly spelt — s-e-n-s-a-t-i-o-n, with no double letter anywhere in it.

This format gives you a short stretch of narrative with four labelled words and tells you that exactly one is misspelt.

The misspelling here turns on a weak, unstressed vowel — the syllable your ear cannot resolve. exhilarated, separate, definitely and desperate are all wrecked in the same place, and all for the same reason.

The defence is a related word in which the vowel is stressed and therefore audible. hilarious rescues the i in exhilarated, part rescues the a in separate, and finite rescues the i in definite.

Key facts

• The correct spelling is exhilarated: e-x-h-i-l-a-r-a-t-e-d.
• Exhilarate shares its root with hilarious, from Latin hilaris meaning cheerful.
• In this format the answer to mark is the label beside the misspelt word, not the word itself.

Common traps

• Answering with the corrected word when the options list letters
• Assuming the longest or least familiar word must be the misspelt one, without checking the rest
• Writing exhilarate with an e for the i because the syllable is unstressed

No directly related past PYQ was found.