Identify the misspelt word in the sentence and choose the option that has the…

Concept

Standard English spelling is fixed by convention rather than by pronunciation, so a word can sound right and still be written wrongly. A small set of patterns produces most high-frequency errors: an intrusive extra vowel inside a stem, a transposed vowel pair in an “-ience” ending, an unstressed vowel written the way it is heard, and a silent “e” kept before a consonant suffix that requires it to be dropped.

In a “find the misspelt word” item the sentence is broken into segments, and each segment reproduces one content word in a different spelling. The method is to test every content word of the sentence against the form the dictionary fixes for it, then take the segment that restores the faulty word.

Application

The sentence reads: Although the audience appreciated his analysis, a minor inconvienience disrupted the flow of his argument.

Testing each content word against its dictionary form: “audience”, “analysis” and “argument” are all written correctly in the sentence, while “inconvienience” carries an intrusive “i”. The dictionary form is “inconvenience” — the prefix “in-” added to “convenience”, which is itself formed on “convenient” (from Latin “convenire”). That derivation fixes the syllable after “incon-” as “-ven-”, so the word runs in-con-ven-ience; the sentence instead writes “-vien-”, inserting an extra “i” between the “v” and the “e”.

The sentence therefore contains exactly one spelling error, at “inconvienience”, and the segment to select is the one that reproduces that word in its dictionary form: “inconvenience disrupted”.

Contrast

• “Although the audeince appreciated” — the noun is written “audience”, keeping the “i” before the “e” in the “-ience” ending inherited from Latin “audire”; this segment transposes those two vowels.

• “his anelysis, a minor” — the noun is written “analysis”, from Greek “analusis”, with “a” in the second syllable as in “analyse”; this segment writes “e” in that syllable.

• “the flow of his arguement.” — the noun is written “argument”, because the silent “e” of “argue” is dropped before the suffix “-ment”; this segment keeps that “e”.

Cross-check

Read each of those three segments back into the sentence and it changes a word the sentence already spelt correctly, so none of them can be the correction the question asks for. Read “inconvenience disrupted” back in and every word of the sentence now matches its dictionary form, which confirms that “inconvienience” was the sentence’s misspelt word and “inconvenience” its correct spelling.