ESPN Spelling Bee Thread

[IowaSacKing93]

They have one of these every year...and it's typically on ESPN or ABC.

I'm not sure what the format is..I think they just have rounds and if you spell your word correctly, you move on to the next round, and if you don't, you're out. But it could be different than that.

Anyway..I've always had a couple of questions about this tournament.

*Why do they always flip their name card and pretend to write on it? Does that really help with the spelling? I guess I could see a couple of spellers do it..but it seems that almost everyone does it. It could also be something that calms their nerves down..they don't just want to start spelling the word, maybe they want to 'fake write' it down first so that it seems right that way.

*Not to be racial or anything, but it seems that many of these contestants are Indian, or South Asian. And it's not like they're foreign exchange students that are spelling wizzes lol..they're just of Asian origin and live somewhere in the US. But why is this the case? Are they just naturally good spellers?

Anyways, I always run across this spelling bee, and I never watch more than 20-30 minutes..I just watch to get an idea of the words that are being used..and now I'm just wasting time before the SA-OKC game.

[nuraman00]

The rules:

If you misspell a word, you're out.

When it gets down to the championship rounds (of which there are only 25 sub-rounds), if you miss a word, then someone after you has to get a word right, within that sub-round. If everyone misses a word, then you can still stay in it.

I'm not sure how they determine when the championship round starts, but usually there's 5-6 people left at that point.

The rules also say that you can't start over. So, once you say a letter out loud, you can't correct it.

They pretend to write on it, so they can visualize the word, and visualize let's say the next 5 letters. They want to "see" what it looks like, before committing to it and saying it out loud.

They're just trying to be very careful.

Also, the people that get this far are usually very good at identifying root words, prefixes, suffixes. They ask for the word origin, because usually they can get a clue. So again, they want to make sure that the word seems to be from where it's supposed to be. For example, if it's of Latin origin, they want to make sure that it really is.

I usually watch the spelling bee every year, at least the end of it.

Oh, it's on ESPN this year. It used to be on ABC.

I also try to watch the math competition they also air, around this type of the year.

No, these guys aren't naturally good spellers. But the people that participate in this, are usually of the same demographics as those that participate in science bowls, math competitions, etc. The same demographics of people that participate in other academic extra curricular competitions, participate in the spelling one.

Remember, this is their own free time. (Although if they get this far, I think there's some sort of small scholarship to all). Not everyone would want to spend hours at such a young age studying for this stuff.

[Eze]

Girl that won said she spent 6 hours a day on the weekdays, 10 hours a day on the weekends spelling.

Kill me.

[nuraman00]

Girl that won said she spent 6 hours a day on the weekdays, 10 hours a day on the weekends spelling.

Kill me.

How do you have 6 hours a day on the weekdays?

I can understand weekends, and maybe 1 hour a day on weekdays.

Also, this seems to be easier than memorizing vocabulary definitions, IMO. There starts to be patterns in spelling (even though English has a lot of exceptions).

With vocabulary definitions, it's easier to "draw a blank".

With spelling, at least you have different tools you can use, to break down a word. You can figure out the origin, root word, etc.

Unless these kids try to memorize spelling of words, and their definitions.

I don't even think kid athletes spend 6 hours a day practicing sports.

[IowaSacKing93]

Cool. Thanks for the info

[Eze]

3-9 after school or 4-10 I guess. That's all she apparently did. Wild.

[nuraman00]

Championship prize:

http://www.spellingbee.com/prizes

For the Champion:

• From Scripps, a $30,000 cash prize and an engraved trophy
  
• From Merriam-Webster, a $2,500 U.S. savings bond and a complete reference library
  
• From Sigma Phi Epsilon Educational Foundation, a $5,000 scholarship
  
• From Encyclopaedia Britannica, $2,600 in reference works, including the Final Print Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a lifetime membership to Britannica Online Premium
  
• From Middlebury Interactive Languages, an online language course and a Nook Color

[nuraman00]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/...lling-bee.html

[nuraman00]

A 6 year old said she was too tired:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports...C4U_story.html

[nuraman00]

Another good article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...nN7U_blog.html

[nuraman00]

Another article about the winner's background:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...ll-report.html

[nuraman00]

The winner's dad wrote a program to create 30,000 flash cards:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...lashcards.html

[nuraman00]

Interesting, her dad says that studying this amount is what it will probably take to study during medical school and be a neurosurgeon, which is what her dream is.

++++++++++++++++++++++++=

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...0471a0edcc40f0

In the run-up to the bee, Nandipanti studied 6 to 10 hours a day on weekdays and 10-12 hours on weekends — a regimen that she'll need to maintain to get through medical school, her father said.