Lesson Summary
This quiz will test your English listening and spelling skills! It's a test that not many people can pass because there are lots of WORDS THAT SOUND THE SAME in English… How can you be sure you are using the right one? Are you making mistakes?
Is it there, their or they're?
Is it here or hear? Weather or whether?
Bear with me or bare with me?
Test your skills, expand your vocabulary and practise with me – share your results and questions down below!
CLICK HERE to read the full lesson transcript.
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Video Transcript
Section 1
Well hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish! Today's video is a quiz, specifically to test your listening and your spelling skills and hopefully, to introduce a few new words as well.
As I'm sure you have already noticed, English is full of pairs of words that sound the same but they're spelled differently and they have different meanings. Perhaps they're different types of words. They're called homophones and this quiz is going to test your English accuracy.
And I have a sneaky feeling that some of my excellent students are going to perform better, much better than some of my native-speaking friends. I've already asked some of them to do this quiz exactly as you're about to do it now and none of them got it a hundred percent right.
So if you're a native English speaker, I challenge you to take this quiz too and to please share your results down in the comments below. Honest results.
As I said, I'll be testing your listening skills and your accuracy in writing so let me tell you what I need you to do. You'll hear me say a sentence out loud and you'll see that sentence on the screen but there will be a word missing.
Have you ever tried eating raw steak?
You simply need to guess what that correct word is. And since we're practising your spelling today, it is absolutely essential that you write down your answer.
I'm not just testing the words that you hear but also your spelling so hopefully, you wrote raw and not roar.
As we get further into the lesson, these words are gonna get a little trickier and there will be more words missing from the sentence so you'll need to listen very carefully.
To get ready you could either write one to sixty on a notepad or type them on your computer. In fact, I've added one to sixty down in the comments below so if you just want to copy and paste all of that, I've done all of the hard work for you. Copy and paste it into a comment and you can type them as we go.
We'll move quickly. This is a speed test. You only have three seconds to write down the missing word that you hear so make sure you're prepared before we get started.
I'm not going to share the answers as we go. I'm going to share the answers at the end of the lesson so this means you can turn it into a bit of a challenge with friends if you want.
You can compete against them and then add up your scores at the end. Or if you're a teacher you could get your whole class to compete together then go through the answers at the end of the lesson.
As always if you've got a question or a comment, add it down below. I'll be down to continue the conversation when you finish the lesson.
And one last important thing. Make sure you switch off your subtitles okay? Otherwise, you're gonna see the answers as we go. For the first time ever I'm reminding you to switch off your subtitles. Then let's get started.
- I felt _____ I would see him here.
- Did you _____ me say that I wasn't listening?
- How many people were _____?
- _____ are a few too many apples in the basket.
- Don't you dare tell me _____ not here!
- Do you realise that _____ late?
- Usually people _____ with laughter as he comes out on stage.
- I took off my shoes and let my _____ feet in the sand.
- I think there's a splinter in Billy's _____.
- I went to see _____ brother last night but he wasn't home.
- We had _____ left to buy her an apple muffin.
- Martha was worried she'd detected several _____ in the new design.
- The boat had drifted quite far from the _____.
- I can't remember which witch was _____.
- _____ with me, I have a few more things I need to finish before I leave.
- All he did was stop and _____.
- He _____ out the candles before we finished singing.
- They left two _____ and an uneaten sandwich on the table.
- This lesson was brought to you _____ me.
- We _____ leaving next week and I have no idea what to _____.
- It's a little _____ outside today.
- We _____ our apartment and went backpacking for a year.
- I saw Billy earlier but now he's out of _____.
- To be honest, I thought the price was a little _____.
- I need a small amount of _____ as I _____ the bread.
- My puppy always _____ on my shoes.
- I think Tim _____ it into the car.
- Someone left their jacket in _____.
- There are seven different options for _____.
- He used to require assistance to climb the _____.
- We've been _____ this several times before.
- Before I hope _____ enjoying yourself.
- I had no idea that the family was in _____ .
- I'm waiting for you to _____ my invitation.
- I was quite surprised when I opened the door; there was a _____ there to greet me.
- People usually _____ their nostrils when they're incensed.
- Photography inside the building is _____.
- We have a new piece of information but I don't think it will _____ anything.
- She always dresses with such _____.
- Most pig species are covered in _____ hair.
- John's family _____ racehorses when he was younger.
- I like all of them _____ the blue one.
- I just _____ a moment of peace and quiet.
- I hope we don't see unemployment _____ to new heights over the coming months.
- I _____ him a few days after the accident and he had quite a _____ leg.
- There was a familiar _____ in the kitchen.
- My businesses have their own _____ identity.
- What is the cost of the _____ to Greenwich?
- Getting seven kids up and ready for school is no easy _____.
- Even though I wanted to give up, I didn't want to appear _____.
- They asked us _____ we were married.
- After all the training he did, Tim was disappointed when he came _____.
- He let out a large _____ when he realised he'd missed his train.
- It's a little tight around the _____. You might need a bigger size.
- If your grandma lived to 103, you must have strong _____ in the family.
- That cut may take a little while to _____.
- I think we need to _____ in the design team, they're blowing our budget!
- _____ that I need you to help me with.
- I agree with you in _____ but I need more details before I come on _____.
- _____ on your shirt!
So how are you feeling about that quiz? Are you pretty confident about most of your answers?
Or were there a few in there where you thought: I'm not sure if I heard that correctly or I'm not exactly sure how to spell this correctly.
Either way, I'm going to go through all the answers for you now but please make sure you highlight the ones that you got wrong all right? So that you can spend some time after the quiz just looking into these different words, see how they're used, maybe especially compare them to the other homophones that I'm going to share with you on screen now.
Of course, if you've got any questions, add them into the comments below but now get your pens ready, get ready to correct your answers.
Let's do it!
- Sure.
- Hear.
- There.
- Too.
- They're.
- You're.
- Roar.
- Bare.
- Paw.
- Your.
- Enough.
Note: The wrong word is hidden in Q11 (it should have been ‘buy') and I didn't notice it. (So now, the correct answer is *enough*) - Flaws.
- Shore.
- Which.
- Bear with me.
- Stare.
- Blew.
- Pears.
- By.
- We're. And wear.
- Chilly.
- Leased.
- Sight.
- Dear.
- Flour. And knead.
- Chews.
- Threw.
- Their. And there.
- Dessert.
- Assistance.
This one's a little tricky. It could also be two or more assistants. Either option would make sense here. It would just depend on the context. - Through.
- You're.
- Mourning.
- Accept.
- Maid.
- Flare.
- Banned.
- Alter.
- Flair.
- Coarse.
- Bred.
- Except.
- Peace.
- Soar.
- Saw. And sore.
- Scent.
- Discrete.
- Fare.
- Feat.
- Weak.
- Whether.
- Fourth.
- Groan.
- Waist.
- Genes.
- Heal.
- Rein.
- There's a knot.
- Principle. Board.
- There's snot.
So how did you go? There were definitely some very tricky words in there and they sound exactly the same when they're spoken, don't they? So that means that you could be using the wrong word or the wrong spelling just by accident and of course that impacts on your accuracy and your written English.
So right now I want you to hit pause on the video and count up your score. If you scored between fifty and sixty, you did exceptionally well.
If you did anything close to that, that's amazing as well. This was a tricky quiz. I hope that in the process of completing this quiz you also learnt a few new words as well.
In fact, if you did, let me know which ones were new for you and make sure you practise using them in a sentence down below.
All of my best students are the ones, they're definitely the ones who go beyond my lessons and actually put what we're learning into practice.
So is that you? Are you one of my best students? I want to see your sentences down below okay.
Thanks for watching today and I hope that you had fun. I will see you next week and in case you want to practise with me a little more today, come check out this lesson right here.
I'll see you in there!
mmmEnglish Video Lessons are a series of video lessons created to build confidence in English learners and focus on English in daily life. Download them and watch them anywhere! Subscribe to my YouTube Channel to be the first to get my new videos, and come and say hi on my Facebook page!!
Hello! I want to learning speaking English. But how? I am Turkish literature doctoral student so I want to.I like to your my teacher. You are very best a teacher.
Hi!
I am so thrilled. My first test and got 45 right which is, in my opinion, a huge progress. Thank you Emma I appreciate your support. Bless your heart.
Nice work Mohamed! That's a great result on your first try!
Hi Emma.
Honestly, it didn't go very well for me.
I had 35% correct answers and 20% well written correct answers.
I'll continue studying. Thanks
Good try Jose! I definitely recommend studying this topic a little further and then when you are ready, try this test again! Best of luck with your studies!
Hi Emma good morning!
In face of that I could see that the problem for me is not only the simmilar sound , but the vocabulary.
I'll enjoy your Very good test to increase my vocabulary.
Thank you Emma!
Hello Esra. I am sure you know the song by Freddie Mercury that starts: I want to break free. …
From this you can easily find your first mistake in your comment and will never forget it. 🙂
Greeting from Slovakia.
Hello Emma,
I'm a grandma aged 80+ and I wan to keep in touch with our grandchildren in Australia.
I'm disappointed with myself as my score is only 11.
It's still a long way to go …
Awesome exercice, so quick, no time to think about !
My score is 26 only, so room for improvement.
New words for me are : roar, coarse, there's snot.
Have a nice day
Hi, Emma
I am an English teacher in Portugal (not a native speaker) and I go through homophones all the time with my students.
I scored 59 in this quiz, I got 57 wrong.
I have two questions though.
On sentence 47, I wrote discreet, and on the video you marked discrete as the correct answer. However in the sentences below the correct answer is discreet.
On sentence 59, I wrote principle, and on the video you marked principal as the correct answer. However in the sentences below the correct answer is principle.
Could you tell me which one is correct? If my answer is wrong, then I have only scored 57…
Thank you so much for all your videos.
Ana Prata (Portugal)
My apologies Ana! The correct answers are DISCRETE and PRINCIPLE.
I will stop by and buy some vegetables.
You're going to be late.
We're did you go to,come and wear your shoes.
I will stop by and buy some vegetables.
2. We're running late come and wear 6 shoes.
Hi Emma,
Thanks a lot. with this style of exercises I feel under pressure to do it well; unfortunatelly it doesn't like what I hope .It's a good idea to improve listening skills and interesting way to compet with colleagues, so I try to shape it next time.
thank very much.
Thanks for the lessons! The test is amazing. But I would like to receive more avanced ones.
Glad you liked this one! I'll try to make another advanced lesson soon!
Dear Emma, I did this test yesterday and I failed in the test. Now I am very unhappy.
Hi EmmaThanks a bunch it ia a great study and it helped me alot.I scored 35 exact correct ,almost 10 with one or two spelling mistakes.I'm trying to improve my listening and speaking as far as I can .
and let me mention one thing that I' ve realised. The answer of the 43rd question should be ‘NEED' I think.Am I wrong?:)
36 out of 60
Hi there Emma,
I believe 8 should be bare, and 36 flare.
Cheers,
Hale
Whoops, thanks for letting me know! I've fixed the transcript 🙂
roar with laughter – this was new to me I used this verb to an animal before only
flaws – I made a mistake and spelt it fawl but I knew this word, maybe my pronunciation is closer to British English, therefore I fell in the trap of wrong spelling
bear – I clearly did not know this expression, I would have used stay with me
leased – I missed “d” and wrote lease only, not enough context awareness
chewes – same issue as the one before, also I'm old and deaf:)
threw – same issue
flare – I never do such things, come on how do you want me to know this verb?
coarse – I have not used this word only read it maybe and forgot about it: that is why I misspelled and wrote “corse”
So can you say: I remember our summer cottage was full of coarse blankets, I did not like the touch of them. ?
bred – ouh, after coarse bred was only because I was a bit perplexed, I'm a strange breed myself and not bred to race
sore – too close to soar, easy to get trapped sore feet and prices soared in Brussels when it became the capital of the EU;
Remark: your video has discrepency in the spelling of discreet (you put discrete as correct in the video and discreet on the website)
feat – totally new word, thank you! Climb the 7 floors when the elevator does n't work carrying the shopping bags is quite a feat!
fourth – I thought it was a context where shyness was implied so I toatlly misunderstood the sentence.
groan – I spelt it grown, getting tired at the end of the test
rein – actually I did not know this can be used as a verb
There's a knot – I did not understand the word “knot”, in a real life situation you see the knot and one would say “I cannot tie this knot. Could you helpp me?”
There's snot – and there you lost me again for the above mentioned reasons, like I do not know what you're talking about 🙂
Hi Emma,
Thanks very much. This exercise has given me a good idea on how to help my grandchildren learn English in a similar and interesting way. Their English is not yet good enough to follow this lesson, so I’ll adapt with simpler words in short sentences.
I’m an Australian who’s been living overseas since 1964 when I was just 21, mainly living in France. I have 5 grandchildren, of whom, 2 girls of 14 and 12 are trying to learn English. It’s not easy to keep them interested. I find your lessons very useful and thank you for them.
I myself made 4 mistakes in this lesson. A funny one was trying to see how Billy (for me, a boy) could possibly get a splinter in a “pore” in his skin.
Best regards. Kevin.
40/60 – not bad, but not as good as I thought I would be 🙁 there were some quite tricky words as well as some completely new for me. Thanks for the great work and fun I had doing that <3
Still a great effort, Jolanta!
Great Lesson Emma. Thank you for always helping us to improve our English skills.
It's always an absolute pleasure!
I had 31 correct answers. I thougt I could do it better. There were a lot of words I didn’t know, so there is place for more vocabulary to learn.
I love tests! Greetings from Mexico!
Good work Lety! At least you tried! 🙂
Hello Emma, my score is 34 correct and 4 partially correct ( where two or more words were required), and 22 incorrect (some of them I've never heard).
My problem was that I put down on paper numbers and then wrote the missing words. I hadn't finished writing the word(s) and already heard the following sentence.
Dear Emma,
I have enjoyed the lesson. Thanks first for that. I scored only 17. Okay, I have to learn phonetics more.
Hey Emma,
My score is 14 if 11 sentence the word is enough, so it will be 15. Mine mistakes was with some words which I don't know. Some sentences half of wrong coz first word wrong others words correct. So I realize my vocabulary not good enough. I need read more to fill up mine vocabulary.
The wrong word is hidden in Question 11 (it should have been ‘buy') and I didn't notice it. (So now, the correct answer is *enough*)
Hi Emma,
your video is very interesting. My score was 28 too bad!
I'll listen it again to learn the new words like n.58,59 etc
See you nex lesson
Hi Emma, helpful lesson to be aware of my low level of listening yet. I've got 20,5 only I'm indeed a bit down, therefore. Thanks in any case.
My teacher it is great thanks a lot with regards.
Hi Emma, I really enjoyed this lesson. my score is 43 out of 60, so there´s still enough to practice. Your lessons are so helpful…Thank you!
Excellent work, Theo!
Hi Emma, good afternoon there.
Well, I could realize that one of the main reasons for the mistakes, is the vocabulary.
And for sure the little time to answer the questions, too.
I'll study these new vocabulary;
And I'll redo these one again.
Thank you very much for this Very good exercise,that allow we learn not only the vocabulary, the correct understanding.
Thanks.
I found this exercise very difficult, there were a lot of words that I didn't know.
thank you Emma for this new lesson
Hi Emma, thank you for this test. I found it quite difficult. Please can you explain me the sentence number 14.I don't understand the meaning of which in this sentence.
The full sentence of that one should be: I can't remember which witch was which.
‘Which (something) is which' is often expressed as a question, asking for help in distinguishing two similar things or people.
Good practice but not easy! 40/60
Great work though, Toon!
Hi Emma. I've got 32 correct answers of 60. Most of my mishaps have happened in the second half of the quiz, where I got only 12 correct.
It was interesting. Thank you.
There is a mistake in the correction of question 60 in the video, but not in the transcript
Hello Emma ! I got 45 correct answers. I´ll keep on practising. Thank you so much, you are helping me a lot! Greetings from Argentina!
Fantastic result, Monica! Well done!
Hello Emma! I'm a native English speaker and volunteer ESL teacher. I often refer my student to your site (not “sight”) I scored 56. I misheard 1 word (“bred” not “rode”)and misspelled 3 (they're; dessert; discrete) This was a good challenge! Thank you.
Haha, yes, it's a challenge even for native English speakers! Thanks so much for sharing my lessons with your students! Where are you teaching English?
thanks a lot
Shame on me. I thought I'd have done better, but I got only 35 words correct.
Thank you very much my teacher.