The IELTS Trap Testfree
"I already know these words."
Three minutes, no sign-up. Hear 15 of the words the test loves, type them, and see which ones you would actually lose. Then spend your time only on those.
For IELTS and TOEFL candidates
Sitting IELTS? Three spelling mistakes is half a band.
The gap between 6.5 and 7.0 can be two or three marks, and spelling is the cheapest place to find them. Five minutes a day, before test day.
You hear …
You type
0 marks. The trap: two c's and two m's. Spelling.School shows you the letter, then brings the word back until it sticks.
How the marks go missing
Have you ever lost a mark on an answer you understood? You heard "accommodation". You knew it. You wrote it with one m. That answer scores what a blank box scores.
- In Listening and Reading, your answer must match the key letter for letter. There is no partial credit.
- The gap between two half-bands can be as small as two or three marks. Two spelling mistakes on answers you heard perfectly can cost you half a band.
- In Writing, spelling is part of your Lexical Resource score. The same words come up.
- British or American spelling are both accepted. Mixing them inside one word is not.
Most candidates spend weeks training their ears and almost no time on spelling, because they know the words when they read them. Knowing a word when you see it is not the same as producing it from memory in three seconds. That gap is where the marks go.
What you get
The 21-Day IELTS Spelling Reset
Everything below is one account. The first 14 days have all of it, and ask for no card.
The 62 Words That Cost Marks
"Which words should I even practice?"
The spellings the test returns to, from its own topics: housing, study, travel, health, work, the environment. Accommodation, necessary, questionnaire, Wednesday, environment, receipt. Each one spoken in a sentence, the way Listening gives it to you.
The Why Behind Every Letter
"I keep making the same mistake and I do not know why."
A miss never just says wrong. It shows you which letter went where, and the part of the word that catches people, so the next time you meet it you know where to look.
The Weak Spot Finder
"It will not work for me. My mistakes are different."
If you keep dropping a double letter, or swapping -ance and -ence, or losing a silent letter, it notices, names the pattern, and gives you a few more words with that pattern each day until it stops happening.
The Never-Forget Schedule
"I will forget it all by test day."
Every word comes back right before you would forget it: tomorrow, then in a few days, then a week, then longer. By test day you have met your hard words five or six times, spaced out. That is how memory works, and you never have to plan it.
The Mother-Tongue Trap Guides
"English spelling makes no sense to a speaker of my language."
The mistakes Hindi and Urdu, Bengali, Arabic, Tagalog, Indonesian, Persian and Punjabi speakers make most in English, and why. Written for learners, free to read.
Exam-Week Extra Practice
"I only have a week."
The week before the test, run the whole list again, any time, as often as you like, on top of your daily words.
Your Own Words
"My practice tests have words that are not on any list."
Add a word from your own practice test. It gets a recorded voice and a sentence and joins your schedule like the rest.
Built the way the test works
You hear the word in a sentence. You type it. If you got it, it moves further away. If you missed it, you see which letter went wrong and why, you type it once while looking, and once more from memory before the session ends. Nothing to prepare, no lists to make. The schedule does the planning.
4,464 words, every one with a recorded voice and a sentence. Every definition checked by hand. The 62 trap words chosen from the test's own topic areas. Built by a very small team that could not find anything like it when they needed it.
The Retake Guarantee
If your score does not go up, you pay nothing.
Take the Trap Test today. Do 20 sessions in your first 30 days of Pro. Then take it again. If your score has not gone up, email us. We refund every cent, and we keep you on Pro, free, until it has.
Why those conditions: 20 sessions is the amount of practice that makes the words stick. We cannot practice for you, but if you do your part and it did not work, that is on us.
What it costs
$95 a year, which is $7.92 a month
Or $15 a month. The first 14 days have everything and ask for no card. Pro renews automatically, yearly at $95 or monthly at $15, until you cancel; cancel any time in Settings, in one click, and keep Pro to the end of the period you paid for.
A year of Pro costs about what two hours with a tutor cost. Twenty sessions here take less time than one of those hours.
🎉 Founding members: the first 100 pay $57 a year, for life, never the full price. Ends 31 October 2026. The founding button is on the pricing page.
Questions candidates ask
British or American spelling?
IELTS accepts both, as long as you do not mix them inside one word. Spelling.School speaks American English and accepts British spellings as correct, so colour, centre and organise are never marked wrong.
Does this help with Writing, or only Listening?
Both. In Listening and Reading a misspelled answer scores zero. In Writing, spelling is part of your Lexical Resource score, and the examiner sees every mistake. The words are the same.
How long before the test should I start?
Three weeks is enough to fix the 62 words that cost marks and keep them fixed. One week still helps: take the Trap Test first and spend the week on the words you actually missed.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, in the browser, no app to install. The practice uses its own on-screen keyboard, so your phone cannot suggest the spelling for you.
What does it cost in my country?
Pro has local prices in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Egypt and Indonesia, about a third of the US price. The first 14 days have everything and ask for no card.
I am sitting TOEFL or PTE, not IELTS.
The words are the same, and both TOEFL and PTE count spelling in written answers. The Trap Test and the 62 words are just as useful.
More: how Listening answers are marked · spelling in Writing Task 2 · Hindi and Urdu speakers · Bengali speakers · Filipino speakers