Word whizzes clash at Spell Bee contest

The Spell Bee competition organised by Deccan Herald In Education (DHiE) at the Bal Bhavan on Wednesday was abuzz with word whizzes.

Amrit Sodhi of St Joseph's Boys School won the first prize. The second and the third prizes were won by Amulya Srivatsa of the Deccan International School and Ranjana Gauri of BM English School, Hennur Road, respectively. All the three winners are from Class X.

The competition started with the prelims round, attended by 220 students. Of these, 16 semi-finalists were chosen and finally, after the semi-final round, eight finalists were announced.

 The visual round in the prelims included questions like 'What 8-letter word is used to describe the designed title of the newspaper on the front page?' (The answer was ‘masthead’, which none of the students got right). Other questions included anagrams, spotting errors in spellings, etc.

The 16 semi-finalists attempted another four rounds, which included: 'Spot the Error', 'Spell the words', 'Newswords' and the 'Missing links'. Words like ‘saccharine’, ‘audacious’ and ‘utilitarian’ were asked by the Spell Bee Master Arul Mani, a member of the Karnataka Quiz association. 

“It was fun. I hope that they keep organising such competitions as they are informative. I got most of the spellings right as I read a lot books and keep my general knowledge updated. I like to read PG Wodehouse, Agatha Christie and many others," said Amrit Sodhi, winner of the competition. 

The eight finalists were put through another 4 rounds: Etymologies (guess the word from their histories), Sangrama (an anagram for anagrams), Spell the Word, and Recognition Round (using visuals). Ranjana Gauri of Std X of BM English school, who won the second prize in the competition said, "I am a little disappointed with my performance. Though I didn't get much time to prepare as I was a informed just a day before, I think I could have scored better."

Words like ‘happenstance’, ‘remediation’, ‘monomaniacal’ and many other difficult words made their way into the vocabulary of the young minds. Moreover, it wasn't only about spellings. There were lots of journalism-related questions like 'What is the introductory portion of a news story called and the answer is also a name of a molten metal?' The science-related questions also helped the students enhance their vocabulary and general knowledge.