Last year, with no vocabulary test, 40 of 245 kids made it past the written spelling exam. The written spelling test, which was 50 words long in 2013, was cut to 30 words this year.

A. Principle For example, it probably goes against your “principles” to cheat on a test of 4th grade spelling words—and it just might get you sent to the “principal’s” office.

About this story Most commonly misspelled words were identified by the Oxford University Press. A version of this story was originally published May 29, 2014, by Emily Chow and Kat Downs Mulder.

You should, in theory, know how to spell the following words. Yet they seem to be misspelled pretty often. Test your knowledge below. Then challenge a friend, relative or co-worker. Good luck!