Difficulty: Easy
Correct Answer: Hispanic
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
Spelling questions test a learner awareness of standard written English and familiarity with common words that appear in newspapers, examinations, and official documents. In this item, the candidate must recognize which one of the four alternatives is spelled correctly according to standard dictionaries. All the options look somewhat similar to real English words, but only one actually matches standard spelling rules. Such questions reinforce careful reading and help candidates avoid spelling mistakes in descriptive writing tasks.
Given Data / Assumptions:
- Four words are given as options.
- Three of them are misspellings or do not correspond to standard English forms.
- One option is the correctly spelled word used in real contexts.
- The task is to pick the correct spelling, not the meaning.
Concept / Approach:
Spelling questions often present near misses that differ by one or two letters from a correct form. The best approach is to check whether the option corresponds to a known English word that you have seen in reading. "Hispanic" is a widely used term describing people, culture, or languages related to Spanish speaking regions, especially in the Americas. The other options are distorted versions of possible words: "scuries" seems to aim at "scurvy" or "scurries", "snached" is close to "snatched", and "cavortted" resembles "cavorted". Recognizing these patterns ensures that you can eliminate them as incorrect spellings.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Examine option a, "scuries". This is not a standard English word. It looks like a mistaken form of "scurries", the plural of "scurry".
Step 2: Examine option b, "snached". The correct spelling of the verb in past tense is "snatched" with a "t" after "a". Therefore "snached" is incorrect.
Step 3: Examine option c, "cavortted". The correct past tense of "cavort" is "cavorted" with a single "t" before "ed"; the double "tt" and the extra "ted" structure are wrong.
Step 4: Examine option d, "Hispanic". This is a common proper adjective used in demographic and cultural contexts, and this spelling appears consistently in newspapers, government reports, and academic writing.
Step 5: Since only "Hispanic" corresponds to an accepted standard spelling, it must be the correct answer.
Verification / Alternative check:
A quick way to verify is to think of real world usage. News reports frequently refer to "Hispanic communities" or "Hispanic culture" when talking about census data or social issues. You would not see "scuries", "snached", or "cavortted" in any reliable publication. Another check is to remember common rules for forming past tense verbs in English, such as adding "ed" to the base form without introducing incorrect extra consonants. This method confirms that options b and c are wrong, and leaves "Hispanic" as the logically correct choice.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option a "scuries" is wrong because it is not a recognized word and likely confuses two different forms, "scurvy" and "scurries".
Option b "snached" is wrong because the standard past tense of "snatch" is "snatched". Missing the "t" is a spelling error.
Option c "cavortted" is wrong because it incorrectly doubles the consonant and does not follow the normal pattern of adding "ed" to get "cavorted".
Common Pitfalls:
A frequent mistake is to select an option simply because it looks unfamiliar, assuming that difficult looking words are more likely to be correct. Examination setters exploit this by presenting two or three distorted forms around a single well known word. Another pitfall is reading too quickly and not noticing an extra or missing letter. To avoid these errors, candidates should train themselves to slow down, mentally pronounce each option, and recall whether they have encountered that exact spelling in reliable sources such as textbooks or quality newspapers.
Final Answer:
The correctly spelled word among the options is Hispanic.
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