1. This sentence has ONE spelling mistake:
"Kiri came eigth in the cross-country."
Type the correct spelling of the misspelt word.
ICAS Spelling Paper D (Year 6)
Paper D is sat by Year 6 students. Fifty questions in 40 minutes — the paper is now at its full length, and the clock is still 40 minutes.
That works out at 48 seconds a question, against a minute on Paper A. Along with Paper E, this is the tightest pace in ICAS Spelling, and pace is part of what is being tested.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
Where the growth went
Paper D has ten more questions than Paper A, with the same four kinds of question. ICAS doesn't publish how many questions of each kind there are, so the number to plan around is the total: fifty questions in 40 minutes.
What Year 6 brings
Roots and endings rather than whole words. Greek and Latin roots start carrying real weight, and with them the endings that trip everyone up: -tion, -sion, -cion; -able and -ible; -ant and -ent. Silent letters appear in their harder forms.
The shift matters for preparation. Memorising lists stops scaling around here. A student who knows that -sion follows certain sounds can spell words they have never seen, which is precisely what the paper is designed to reward.
Where Year 6 students lose marks
- -able versus -ible, and the other paired endings, which cannot be heard
- Words built from a familiar root where the join changes the spelling
- Running out of time. At 48 seconds a question, a student who lingers on three hard items loses the easy ones at the end.
A note on dictation
Students hear the dictated words through headphones in the real test. Our Paper D practice starts with dictated words, so set up headphones before your child begins.
What the mark will look like
ICAS marks run lower than school tests by design. The paper keeps stretching students well past year level, so a result that looks disappointing on a school scale can be a strong ICAS result — read it against the distribution rather than as a percentage.
How to prepare for Paper D
Work on word families rather than word lists. Take one root and build outward, and the paper's unseen words stop being unseen.
Then practise at pace. Fifty questions in 40 minutes is the real constraint, and it cannot be rehearsed ten questions at a time.
Common questions
Which year level sits ICAS Paper D?
Year 6. ICAS names its papers by letter rather than by year — Paper A is Year 3 and Paper F is Year 8 — so a Year 6 student sits Paper D.
How long is Spelling Paper D?
50 questions in 40 minutes.
How tight is the time on Paper D?
Fifty questions in 40 minutes — 48 seconds each, tied with Paper E for the tightest pace in ICAS. That constraint cannot be rehearsed ten questions at a time, which is why full-length timed practice matters more here than in most subjects.
Year 6 also sits: Maths Paper D · English Paper D · Science Paper D
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: eighth
The misspelt word is 'eigth' — it should be 'eighth'.
The ordinal is the whole number eight plus -th, so the h appears twice: eigh-t-h.
That double h is what makes this the trickiest ordinal to spell.
'eighth' is the correct spelling.
2. Which spelling completes the sentence?
"The ferry was towed back to its before the storm arrived."
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: D
Work out the meaning the sentence needs: the place at a wharf where a boat is tied up.
That word is berth. Its homophone, birth, names the moment a baby is born, which cannot be towed to.
'Its' points to one place, so the singular form is needed: berth.
'berth' is the correct spelling.
3. ONE word in this sentence is the wrong word — it sounds right but means something else:
"He was told not to medal in matters that did not concern him."
Type the correct word.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: meddle
A medal is a disc you win in a competition.
To meddle is to interfere in something that is not yours.
So the sentence needs meddle.
'meddle' is the correct word.
Practise free, no account needed. Every paper is marked the moment your child finishes, with a worked solution on every question.
Free practice draws from a limited set of questions, so some will repeat. Subscribers get the full question bank and fewer repeats.
Related papers: Spelling Paper C (Year 5) · Spelling Paper E (Year 7)
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