1. The writer has used a real word, but not the right one — it sounds almost the same, and the meaning does not fit. Write the word that belongs:
"She was loathe to raise the matter a second time."
Type the word that belongs in its place.
ICAS Spelling Paper E (Year 7)
Paper E is sat by Year 7 students and is the highest level in ICAS Spelling — unlike the other subjects, there is no Paper F. Fifty questions in 40 minutes, with the same four kinds of question as Paper D.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
What Year 7 brings
Morphology. By this level the paper assumes a student can take a word apart — prefix, root, suffix — and rebuild it correctly. Words like irresponsible, unnecessarily and pronunciation are not memorised; they are assembled, and the marks go to students who can assemble them.
Subject vocabulary also arrives. Words from science, geography and history turn up, spelled the way those subjects spell them, and their patterns often come from Greek or Latin rather than from English sound rules.
What makes Paper E the hardest
Two things.
The words are less common, so guessing from familiarity fails more often. And the proofreading questions increasingly use errors that a spellchecker would not flag — a real word in the wrong place, or a plausible variant.
The clock is unchanged. Fifty questions in 40 minutes, the same as Paper D, on harder material. At 48 seconds a question, that is the tightest pace in ICAS — shared only with Paper D.
Where marks go
- Double letters at morpheme joins — unnecessary, irresistible
- Real-word errors in proofreading, where nothing looks misspelt because nothing is
- Endings governed by origin rather than sound — the -ance/-ence family being the standing example
- Pace, again and most of all
A note on dictation
In the real test the dictated words come through headphones. Our Paper E practice begins with them — have headphones ready.
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 E
Study word parts, not words. A student who knows what ir- does, and what happens when it meets a root starting with r, can spell a family of words they have never met. That is the level the paper is pitched at.
And time every practice. On this paper, the difference between knowing the words and finishing the paper is real.
Common questions
Which year level sits ICAS Paper E?
Year 7. ICAS names its papers by letter rather than by year — Paper A is Year 3 and Paper F is Year 8 — so a Year 7 student sits Paper E.
How long is Spelling Paper E?
50 questions in 40 minutes.
Is there a Paper F for spelling?
No. Paper E is the highest spelling level ICAS offers. Year 8 students sit Mathematics, English and Science only.
Year 7 also sits: Maths Paper E · English Paper E · Science Paper E
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: loath
After 'was' the sentence needs a describing word.
Loathe is an action word meaning to hate something.
Loath is the describing word meaning unwilling — she was unwilling to raise it again.
'loath' is the correct word; the variant spelling 'loth' is accepted too.
2. Which spelling completes the sentence?
"The play ends in for both families."
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: C
The soft j sound in the middle is carried by the letter g, followed by an e.
No d is needed in front of that g, even though the sound seems to invite one.
That gives tra-ge-dy.
'tragedy' is the correct spelling.
3. This sentence has ONE spelling mistake:
"The populaton of the town doubles every January."
Type the word correctly.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: population
This word is built from populate plus the ending -ion.
Populate drops its final e before -ion: populat + ion.
That gives population, with an i before the final -on.
'population' is the correct spelling.
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Related papers: Spelling Paper D (Year 6) · English Paper E (Year 7)
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