In the questionnaire the pupils were asked to choose between two
synonymous words, one American and one British and out of those two, circle the
word they found that they recognized the most and would use themselves when
speaking or writing.
The questionnaire consisted of three parts where the first part was a short
story where some nouns had been left out and replaced by two synonymous nouns
(one AmE and one BrE) that the pupil could choose from. They were, for
example, asked to choose either AmE gas station or BrE petrol station. Two of
the words left out were replaced with nouns spelt in the typically British or
American fashion e.g. BrE theatre or AmE theater. The -er versus -re ending is
one common difference in spelling between BrE and AmE.