It is the first fully in-person competition of The Scripps National Spelling Bee in three years. Today, June 2, was the second day of the competition and it was rolling smoothly. Then, all of a sudden it transformed into the SAT. The semifinal round that took place on Wednesday introduced an element of randomness into the venerable bee. Being that, the new element forced spellers to demonstrate a different skill set to test their vocab. And surprisingly, it knocked out some of the most accomplished competitors of the bee. The fourth position holders in the last year’s vocab competition, i.e. Vivinsha Veduru and Roy Seligman, are already out. Moreover, the co-champions of this year’s expert-level Spell Pundit online bee, i.e. Deetya Vuppala and Yash Shelar are also out. None of them could spell a word correctly.
The competition required the participants to solve the multiple-choice vocab questions. Some competitors claimed that this pattern took away their opportunity to use the skills they’ve honed over years of study. They used to learn by identifying the roots of a word; deducing which vowel makes the dreaded “uh” sound known as a schwa to improve their vocab. Scott Remer, a former speller who coached 21 competitors this year said, “The words that are sometimes asked may not necessarily be based on roots or easily decipherable, and so, in that case, it becomes a case of which kids are natural readers and have a lot of cultural capital, and which kids aren’t as culturally sophisticated.”
Why competitors were knocked out of the Vocab competition?
The phrase “Stockholm syndrome”, knocked out Yash. Expert knowledge and years of practice weren’t sufficient to define this phrase. Vivinsha didn’t know “ragout” was a sauce. Deetya was out when asked to spell “ergogenic”. Roy wanted to become the first champion from The Bahamas. However, he failed to define “rumbustical”.
As you know, Vocab has been an important part of this competition for a long time. However, it was the first time that so many spellers in the vocabulary round had to stand in front of the microphone and pick one of three possible answers on a screen in front of them. Some answered instantly. While some had to guess — A, B, or C.