Thursday, May 28, 2015

GOOD MORNING, VICTOR SUTTON:  And welcome to round 5. 49 spellers remain; two rounds of spelling today before the second, and final test-based cut.

The Bee has published the semifinalists' scores; those who aren't in the top twelve here do not control their destiny, but need others above them to err.  Sigh.

10:20am: gla-SWEEJ-uhn, gla-SWEE-jee-uhn, oh, I am a sucker for adjectival forms of places.  4/6 so far.

10:37am: And the Jamaican goes down!  10/14 through so far, but, again, anyone not on the front page of the scoreboard likely isn't advancing no matter what.

10:40am: Vanya gets ... consomme? Really? (And after pistachio and balletomane.) The Dominic Errazo Award is very much in play here.

11:11am: Marsha helps us track the scoreboard in livetime.

11:51am: I cannot complain more loudly as to how much publishing the rankings table robs these rounds of suspense, as we know who the no-hope kids are.  (And, for what it's worth, they're the ones who are erring this round.)  I hope this is a one-year experiment, never to be repeated.

60 comments:

  1. BeeFan10:15 AM

    How about "Saluton, Doktoro Bailly!"

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  2. Marsha10:26 AM

    OKay, I've gone off the deepend. I converted that PDF of the scores into a spreadsheet so I can keep track. I'm insane.

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  3. Barbara Williams10:28 AM

    Absurdly pleased my two picks are absolutely tied as of now. :)

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  4. BeeFan10:30 AM

    Unless there's a 50% attrition rate in both rounds, most of the kids up there are just wasting their time.

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  5. Adam B.10:31 AM

    And now, unlike the past, they all know where they are.

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  6. lisased10:34 AM

    Yesterday, I was formatting and editing a document while listening to the Bee. I really hope my co-workers thought I was talking about the tech writers when I yelled out, "OOF! How do you not know that word?!?"

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  7. Marsha10:42 AM

    Something about that feels wrong, though I don't know that I could explain why.


    Of course, I'm with you generally about this artificial cut to prime time. I suppose it's better than stopping in the middle of a round to move to prime time, but it's still not good. I'm in teh spell-til-it's-done camp.

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  8. Barbara Williams10:43 AM

    I can't imagine how frustrating that is to know that unless a bunch of people above you screw up, you have no shot at the finals regardless of how well you do on stage. :(

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  9. Adam B.10:43 AM

    Absent prime time, there's no need for a second cutoff at all. And I like having prime time. They should be more willing to go with 13-17 for prime time, if necessary, and should be better at calibrating word difficulty at this point to obtain the desired number for 8pm.

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  10. Adam C.10:43 AM

    Question re: the rankings -- would contestants who are tied for the 12th spot get pulled into the finals, or is some tiebreaker criterion used to cut it off at exactly 12?

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  11. Adam B.10:44 AM

    No, they'd go with 9-11 first:

    "mmediately after Round Six a "maximum of 12" standard is applied to remaining spellers' scores accrued during the Preliminaries and Semifinals. Spellers' scores are plotted on a chart. Beginning at 72 on the chart, spellers at each consecutive scoring level are added until a sum of no more than 12 spellers has been attained. All remaining spellers are eliminated unless, in the course of applying the maximum of 12 standard, it appears that fewer than nine spellers will qualify for the Championship Finals. In this circumstance, spellers at the next consecutive scoring level (or levels) may be named as Championship Finalists if, in sole determination of Bee officials, there is sufficient time and word list content to accommodate additional spellers in the Championship Finals."

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  12. Marsha10:45 AM

    Agree completely.

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  13. Marsha10:49 AM

    You're going to need to change the pool rules for next year - picks are submittable only until this list comes out.

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  14. Adam B.10:51 AM

    Agreed, and I've made that ruling already.

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  15. Devin McCullen10:52 AM

    Suuuure, the speller from Boston getting a word that means "characterized by, abounding with, or living in or under snow" after last winter is just a coincidence.

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  16. Adam C.10:55 AM

    Blerg, that seems so arbitrary.

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  17. meco199910:55 AM

    12 or fewer kids.

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  18. Mary Ann Grisham10:57 AM

    Did Dr. Bailey say "syrette" is a trademarked name? I don't recall previous bees including trademarked names

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  19. Mary Ann Grisham11:00 AM

    I don't like this. Today's scores should stand on their own.

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  20. Genevieve11:01 AM

    Booooo. Like ESPN couldn't handle a couple more kids if there's a tie for that spot.

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  21. Marsha11:02 AM

    It's from a trademarked name - like trampoline or cellophane, it's a former trademark that became the generic name for the item.

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  22. meco199911:08 AM

    I agree. But they can't risk going overtime, whatever's next on ESPN is super important!!11

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  23. Barbara Williams11:09 AM

    It's a function of having to fit into neat television slots, which doesn't make me hate it less. I'd rather see a bloodbath round that cuts them down to 12 organically than this.

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  24. Barbara Williams11:10 AM

    The difficulty in this round is sort of all over the place, isn't it?

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  25. Barbara Williams11:11 AM

    I wish the speller had been able to get that the root was "syringe". I think she'd have gotten it easily then.

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  26. I actually looked--it's Baseball Tonight. And the past few years, they've done overruns without issue.

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  27. Lin-Manuel Miranda loves the Bee! https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/603939472053424131

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  28. BeeFan11:20 AM

    What year was it - 2008? - where there were so many missed words early in prime time they were putting commercial breaks after every speller just to stretch it out to 10 PM?

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  29. meco199911:20 AM

    Jacques seems a little snarky with his "am I pronouncing this correcly" responses this year.

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  30. meco199911:23 AM

    Yeah, but ESPN probably would've preferred no overrun.

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  31. Oof. Schnell has bad connotations for me (and probably a lot of you...)

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  32. Adam B.11:28 AM

    Well, they wanted to make sure they delivered on the ads which were sold. They also have all the packaged bio pieces they want to re-air in primetime.

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  33. meco199911:29 AM

    Cole seems way too well-adjusted and normal to win this, but who knows...

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  34. Christy in Philly11:32 AM

    This is so complicated to track this year! Thanks for the spreadsheet.

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  35. Genevieve11:37 AM

    Yes yes yes. I am very much opposed to this new process wherein most of the kids know they almost certainly can't advance.

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  36. Marsha11:41 AM

    Only one more kid from within the presumed cutoff left to go - if Tejas spells correctly, no change at all.

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  37. Genevieve11:42 AM

    OK, now you have combined two of my obsessions (the Bee, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's tweets). I am happy.

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  38. Following it on the spelling bee website, and the "round results" page seems stuck at Dev Jaiswal.

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  39. Marsha11:49 AM

    Yup. You can follow my spreadsheet if you like - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sRF2_LvGq44khv78fbn_uONpDv6JxNXggLOqeoiNCpg/edit?usp=sharing

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  40. I am most enamored of your spreadsheet, Marsha!

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  41. You know, no one complains about the vocal fry in Dr. Bailly's voice! But there is a lot.

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  42. Marsha11:55 AM

    I'm so glad!

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  43. Christy in Philly11:57 AM

    Question about the scoring: Theoretically, Dev could miss his round 6 word and still have a tie score with everyone except Shoba. Am I correctly understanding the rules that he would still be eliminated?

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  44. Marsha11:58 AM

    Because Dr. Bailly is perfect in every way. And don't you forget it.

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  45. Adam B.11:58 AM

    Correct.

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  46. Marsha11:59 AM

    If I'm reading it right, he would not be eliminated. He is now guaranteed to go to the finals.

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  47. Christy in Philly12:00 PM

    I'm looking at this line in the rules: "There are
    no
    immediate eliminations for providing an incorrect answer in the
    Semifinals Test. Upon incorrectly spelling a word in Round Five or Six, the speller is eliminated from the competition."

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  48. The spreadsheet also says: "Points earned for Rounds 5 and 6 vocabulary questions are included for preliminary ranking purposes, and become official only after
    the speller spells correctly in each of these rounds, respectively."

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  49. Marsha12:02 PM

    NEVErmind - i AM COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THAT. Spelling wrong equals elimination. SORRY!

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  50. Marsha12:02 PM

    You are right. I am wrong. Don't know what I was thinking.

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  51. Marsha12:03 PM

    I deleted my completely incorrect comment.

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  52. Christy in Philly12:06 PM

    I really don't get this whole thing!

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  53. Sheila12:09 PM

    Loving the spreadsheet... wondering if you could freeze panes so we can see names and headers even while scrolling? /excelfun

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  54. BeeFan12:12 PM

    Quite right. 2008 was numbnuts.

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  55. Marsha12:16 PM

    DONE! Good suggestion!

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  56. BeeFan12:18 PM

    " I cannot complain more loudly as to how much publishing the
    rankings table robs these rounds of suspense, as we know who the no-hope
    kids are."

    I disagree. This system is stupid, and should look stupid. Why hide it? Maybe it will inspire something more sensible.

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  57. Genevieve12:19 PM

    Yes - it robs it of suspense for the kids too, and just seems really unfair at this stage in the Bee to be relying on written tests to knock more kids out.

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  58. Christy in Philly12:20 PM

    This system stinks. If they need to use points for semi-finals qualification, I get that, but then today should have been a clean slate. It's unlikely to happen but if a kid earns enough points to be in the top 12, the kid should go to prime time.

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  59. Adam B.1:10 PM

    Correct. I don't like the system, but posting it makes it worse.

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