Homophones and Near-Misses

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings. They are a favourite topic in CEM 11+ exams because they test whether you truly understand the difference between similar-sounding words. This lesson covers the most important homophones and "near-miss" words you need to know.

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What Is a Homophone?

A homophone is a word that sounds exactly like another word but has a different meaning and usually a different spelling.

Word 1	Word 2	Meaning 1	Meaning 2
There	Their	In that place	Belonging to them
To	Too	Direction; part of a verb	Also; excessively
Hear	Here	To listen	In this place
See	Sea	To look	A large body of water
Know	No	To understand	The opposite of yes

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The Top 20 Homophone Pairs for the CEM Exam

These are the pairs that come up again and again:

Pair	Meanings	Memory tip
their / there / they're	Belonging to them / in that place / they are	"They're" = "they are"; "their" has "heir" (someone who owns); "there" has "here"
your / you're	Belonging to you / you are	Try replacing with "you are" — if it works, use "you're"
its / it's	Belonging to it / it is	"It's" always means "it is" or "it has"
to / too / two	Direction / also or excessively / the number 2	"Too" has too many o's; "two" is the number
affect / effect	Verb: to influence / Noun: a result	Affect = Action (verb); Effect = End result (noun)
practice / practise	Noun / Verb (in British English)	Ice is a noun; Ise a verb (like advice/advise)
stationary / stationery	Not moving / writing materials	Stationery has e for envelopes
accept / except	To receive willingly / not including	"Ex" means "out" — except leaves something out
aloud / allowed	Out loud / permitted	"Allowed" has "allow" in it
brake / break	To slow down / to damage or pause	You "brake" in a car; you "break" a plate

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More Important Pairs