8th grade commonly confused words worksheets
Commonly confused words are pairs that look or sound alike and mean different things. Eighth grade takes the pairs that follow people into adult writing: allude and elude, complement and compliment, adverse and averse, emigrate and immigrate, lie and lay, stationary and stationery, and pairs like already and all ready that differ by a space.
Free printable PDF worksheet.
Each print is a different sheet with its own answer key. You don't need to sign up.
Need one more? These are the skills next door at this grade.
The kind of sentences you'll get
Circle the letter of the word that belongs in the sentence.
-
Hikers should slowly at high altitude.
breathe · breath
Answer: breathe
- the scale needs a new battery; the numbers keep jumping. May be · Maybe
- Aunt Rosa likes to on the couch for an hour after dinner. lay · lie
Every print pulls a new set of sentences at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling gets a different mix.
What's on an 8th grade sheet
8th grade sheets draw from 70 sentences, 10 to a page. None of these sentences are on 7th grade sheets.
Some of the answers:
complementrespectivelyall togetherconsciousmoralesightpersonnelimmigratedaverseeveryday
- Choose the word. Circle the letter of the word that belongs in the sentence. 10 questions per page.
- Fix it. Write the word in parentheses that belongs in the sentence. 7 sentences to fix per page.
Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.
How to teach this
Most of these pairs have a test, and learning the test beats memorizing sentences. Lay takes an object and lie does not. Emigrate is leaving and immigrate is arriving, so look for from or to. Averse describes a person's attitude, and adverse describes conditions. Stationery has an e, like envelope. For the one-word or two-word pairs, try pulling them apart: if all ready can become all of us are ready, it is two words. A student who knows the tests can handle a pair they have never seen on a worksheet.
Watch for: Spellcheck won't catch these: 'there boots' is spelled correctly, it's just the wrong word. The apostrophe versions are always two words squeezed together: they're = they are, you're = you are, it's = it is or it has. Expanding them is the test.
Common questions about 8th grade commonly confused words
- What is the rule for lie and lay?
- Lay needs an object: you lay the book on the table. Lie does not: you lie down. The past tense makes it messy, because the past of lie is lay, so this sheet sticks to the present tense, where the rule is clean.
- Emigrate or immigrate?
- Emigrate means leaving a country and immigrate means arriving in one. The small words help. People emigrate from a place and immigrate to one, and the same family does both on one trip.
- Why are already and all ready on this page?
- Because spellcheck can't tell them apart, and each one is correct in the right sentence. Already is about time. All ready means everyone or everything is ready. Altogether and all together, everyday and every day, and maybe and may be work the same way.
Related worksheets
- 7th grade commonly confused words A step easier, same skill
- 8th grade active and passive voice Same grade, nearby skill
- 8th grade conjunctive adverbs Same grade, nearby skill
- 8th grade pronoun-antecedent agreement Same grade, nearby skill
- 8th grade shifts in verb voice and mood Same grade, nearby skill
- Commonly confused words, all grades The full progression
- All 8th grade English worksheets Every skill at this level
- All 8th grade worksheets Everything at this level
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Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.
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