IELTS Spelling · Double letters
Double letters in IELTS Listening
There is nothing to understand here. You know the word, you can use the word, and the only question is whether it has one c or two. This is the group that pure practice fixes fastest.
The short answer
About thirty words carry most of the risk. Type each of them a few times with the letters checked, and this group stops costing you anything for the rest of your life, not just for the test.
The ones that matter most
accommodation — two cs and two ms. The most misspelt word in IELTS, and one of the most common answers, because so much of Part 1 is about somewhere to live.
necessary — one c, two ss. The old trick works: one collar, two sleeves.
committee — two ms, two ts, two es. Three doubles in nine letters.
occurred — two cs, two rs. And occurrence, which adds an e where people write an a.
address, beginning, embarrassed, recommend, professional, tomorrow, until, across, disappear, appointment, opposite, difficult, success, possible, assessment, immediately, communication, questionnaire, accessible, announcement.
Four in that list are worth a second look because people double the wrong thing: recommend (one c, two ms), professional (one f, two ss), until (one l) and across (one c).
The pattern that explains half of them
When you add an ending that starts with a vowel — -ed, -ing, -er — to a short word whose last syllable is stressed and ends consonant-vowel-consonant, the final consonant doubles:
- stop → stopped, plan → planning, begin → beginning, occur → occurred, prefer → preferred.
- But not when the stress is elsewhere: visit → visited, open → opened, offer → offered.
- And not after two vowels or two consonants: rain → rained, help → helped.
Knowing the rule will not make you fast. Typing the words will. The rule is for the ones you have never seen.
British and American doubles
A few words double in British spelling and not in American: travelled and traveled, cancelled and canceled, modelling and modeling. Both are accepted. IDP’s rule is to pick one country’s spelling and stay with it rather than mixing them inside one test.
Practise these
This is the group dictation was invented for. Hear it, type it, see the exact letter you lost, type it again — and then stop practising the ones you have got right.
Practise double letters by dictation
The Spelling trainer says a word once, in the accent you pick, and checks what you typed letter by letter — then gives you back only the words you missed.
Open the Spelling trainer →Three days free opens every test — Listening, Reading, Writing and Spelling — plus Vocabulary and Grammar in the app.
Questions people ask
What is the most misspelt word in IELTS?
Accommodation is the usual answer, and it earns it: two cs, two ms, and it appears constantly because so much of Listening Part 1 is about where somebody is going to stay.
Is travelled or traveled correct?
Both. Travelled is British, traveled is American, and either is accepted as long as you are consistent across your answers.
Is there a rule for when a letter doubles?
Mostly. Adding a vowel ending to a short word with a stressed final consonant-vowel-consonant doubles the consonant: stop becomes stopped, begin becomes beginning. It does not apply when the stress falls earlier, which is why visit becomes visited.
The other five groups
- Numbers and dates — Phone numbers, prices, times, reference codes and the date — the Part 1 answers that are lost to a digit, not to English.
- Days and months — Wednesday, February, Tuesday and Thursday — twelve words and seven words, and a surprising number of lost marks.
- Place names — Street, Road, Avenue, and the town name the speaker spells out letter by letter at exactly the wrong moment.
- Personal names — Surnames spelled aloud, hyphens, apostrophes, and the letters that sound the same at speed.
- Plurals — The missing s, the words that are already plural, and the gap that has to agree with the sentence around it.
And the whole picture, with the marking rule and the accents, is on the Spelling trainer page. The words themselves come out of the Listening tests, which run in the computer-delivered interface here.
The marking rule — "words with spelling errors in the Reading and Listening tests will be marked as incorrect" — is IDP’s own wording on How to improve your spelling and Common spelling mistakes, both checked 2 October 2026; the same pages say British and American spellings are both accepted as long as you stay consistent. "You will hear the recordings once only" is from the official IELTS Listening format page, checked 2 October 2026. The two minutes to check at the end of the computer-delivered test, and the fact that the screen has no spell-check, are per the British Council’s paper versus computer guidance, checked 2 October 2026. The six groups of words below are how this trainer organises practice, not an official list. IELTS Computer is not affiliated with IDP, British Council or Cambridge.