Tuesday, May 28, 2013

WHO'S UP FOR SOME BOUILLABAISSE WITH ROUILLE? Early afternoon bullet points:

4 comments:

  1. InertiaGirl2:15 PM

    The speller from my hometown (Amarillo, Texas) attends my former middle school. Sonia Chen is, therefore, my sentimental favorite. (Plus, her bio picture is absolutely adorable.)

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  2. Cliff3:26 PM

    The map corresponds roughly with population density. From my experience though, the actual difficulty of winning a sponsor-level bee depends mostly on the top few students you happen to be competing against from around the area. If you know more relevant words and language patterns than them, you'll have a good shot at earning a trip to nationals one year or another.

    The Preliminaries Test was over this morning, but while the results are still unknown, here are my top 20 predictions:

    1. Vanya Shivashankar
    2. Arvind Mahankali
    3. Sriram Hathwar
    4. Grace Remmer
    5. Emily Keaton
    6. Chetan Reddy
    7. Rachael Cundey
    8. Pranav Sivakumar
    9. Vismaya Kharkar
    10. Gokul Venkatachalam
    11. Max Lee
    12. Christal Schermeister
    13. Christian Allen
    14. Amber Born
    15. Mary Horton
    16. Jae Canetti
    17. Anuk Dayaprema
    18. Ashwin Veeramani
    19. Joseph Delamerced
    20. Aditya Mishra

    I'd speculate that many will make the semifinals, and some into the finals, but I have no idea who will become the eventual champion. The field seems more even than most recent years, really anything could happen.

    The role of luck to get to primetime is also reduced somewhat. This year, two-thirds of the threshold points from both the prelims and semis (48 out of 72) are computerized test words that are the exact same for everyone. Misspelling in an oral round is still an outright elimination though. My advice to my students remains just the same as before though - don't be afraid of the lights and cameras, just keep calm and focus on the word.

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  3. Genevieve5:07 PM

    I'm a fan of local kids Donovan Rolle (D.C. - he was so poised and calm when he did the D.C. Bee) and Jae Canetti (Fairfax).

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  4. Sara Miller5:20 PM

    "What happens if the Bee runs out of words?

    That’s
    not a significant concern of Bee officials, as the list contains enough
    words for us to conduct spelling through dawn on Friday morning."

    ReplyDelete