Could You Win a Spelling Bee?

About This Quiz

Think you are a spelling genius? English is a notoriously tricky language to get right. Even lifelong speakers can confuse all the rules, exceptions, and tricky spellings of both obscure and everyday words. While some languages are mostly phonetic, meaning that you can generally tell how words are spelled by how they sound, English is nothing like that at all. Some words are spelled completely differently, but sound the same, like to, two and too. If English were logical, pie and piece would not have different vowel sounds. If things made more sense, bowl and toll would not be pronounced as rhyming words.    

This is why spelling bees are such a popular form of competition. You cannot fake your way to the top when it comes to these sorts of contests. You have to really know your stuff in order to best English, which has one of the largest and most complex vocabularies of any modern language. It takes a lot of skill to outspell your competitors and get it right every single time! It can become a truly suspenseful competition with onlookers hanging on every last letter. 

If you think you have what it takes to crush a spelling bee, test out your chops with this quiz!