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Spellbound
A love of
spelling can lead to riches and fame for some teenagers.
For
elementary and junior high school students,
spelling bees can begin as an exciting game in
English class. If they ___1___
themselves to spelling, a student may be able to
end up hanging out with
the president. Students are usually given a list of
words that they need to memorize
before a classroom spelling bee. At the beginning of a
bee, all students stand at the front of the classroom,
and ___2___ they
misspell a word, they go back to their
desk. The last student standing is the winner.
Most schools in English-speaking
countries have an annual school-wide bee to try to find
the top spellers in each grade level. Usually, the
winners of school spelling bees will then go on to a
regional bee, where ___3___
the competitiveness becomes fierce.
Most students then hire a
tutor because
if they win a regional bee, they are ___4___
for the "Super Bowl" of spelling bees, Scripps National
Spelling Bee.
Scripps competitors spend hundreds of
hours studying the roots and
etymologies of words, as well as
analyzing the foreign
languages that English is ___5___,
including Spanish and Italian. In recent years,
homeschooled students have won several Scripps bees,
prompting ___6___
from the angry parents of students who go to public and
private schools. They figure that
homeschoolers
have an advantage over
their children. The homeschoolers have
responded
by saying that they do have extra
hours to practice spelling because they don't have any
travel time. The winner of this
grueling
televised competition is ___7___
with US$35,000 in cash and
US$5,000 in prizes. The winner each year also gets a
chance to meet and have his or her picture taken with
the President of the United States.
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