Current and former spellers applauded the changes, saying the hardest words should be last.
Washington:
After two straight years of ties, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is adding more sting: The championship rounds will last longer, and the words will be harder.
The bee, now televised in prime time, has exploded in popularity over the past two decades. And the spellers have gotten increasingly savvy. So instead of sticking to a list of 25 "championship words" selected weeks earlier, the final rounds could have as many as 75 words. And the organizers can choose harder words on the fly if the spellers don't appear to be struggling.
"As difficult as those words offered those co-champions were, we had a more difficult section in our word list, but we couldn't go to them because our rules bound us to stick to that 25-word championship word section," Paige Kimble, the bee's executive director, told The Associated Press.
Current and former spellers applauded the changes, saying the hardest words should be last. On occasion, championship words have left veteran spellers underwhelmed. Tejas Muthussamy, 13, and Sylvie Lamontagne, 13, finalists last year who are returning, both said tougher words were used earlier in the finals.
"The 25 words on the championship word list just tend to be a little bit easier than the other words they've used right before that," Sylvie said. "I don't really know why."
Kimble said one proposed change she rejected was to simply continue the bee as long as it takes to declare a single champion.
"We did not want the specter of the championship being determined by the endurance level of a young child," she said. This year's spellers range from 6 to 14 years old.
There will also be bigger rewards. The first-place cash prize is rising from $30,000 to $40,000, while second place will now get $30,000 and third place, $20,000. The big jumps for second and third place reflect the possibility that spellers could get more words right than any previous winners and still not win, Kimble said. If there are co-champions again, each gets $40,000.
Another change welcomed by spellers: The bee will no longer have a second written spelling and vocabulary test that was used to help determine the finalists. The test was unpopular partly because spellers could be eliminated without getting a word wrong onstage.
Kimble said that could confuse TV viewers, left to wonder why a favorite speller was suddenly gone.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The bee, now televised in prime time, has exploded in popularity over the past two decades. And the spellers have gotten increasingly savvy. So instead of sticking to a list of 25 "championship words" selected weeks earlier, the final rounds could have as many as 75 words. And the organizers can choose harder words on the fly if the spellers don't appear to be struggling.
"As difficult as those words offered those co-champions were, we had a more difficult section in our word list, but we couldn't go to them because our rules bound us to stick to that 25-word championship word section," Paige Kimble, the bee's executive director, told The Associated Press.
Current and former spellers applauded the changes, saying the hardest words should be last. On occasion, championship words have left veteran spellers underwhelmed. Tejas Muthussamy, 13, and Sylvie Lamontagne, 13, finalists last year who are returning, both said tougher words were used earlier in the finals.
"The 25 words on the championship word list just tend to be a little bit easier than the other words they've used right before that," Sylvie said. "I don't really know why."
Kimble said one proposed change she rejected was to simply continue the bee as long as it takes to declare a single champion.
"We did not want the specter of the championship being determined by the endurance level of a young child," she said. This year's spellers range from 6 to 14 years old.
There will also be bigger rewards. The first-place cash prize is rising from $30,000 to $40,000, while second place will now get $30,000 and third place, $20,000. The big jumps for second and third place reflect the possibility that spellers could get more words right than any previous winners and still not win, Kimble said. If there are co-champions again, each gets $40,000.
Another change welcomed by spellers: The bee will no longer have a second written spelling and vocabulary test that was used to help determine the finalists. The test was unpopular partly because spellers could be eliminated without getting a word wrong onstage.
Kimble said that could confuse TV viewers, left to wonder why a favorite speller was suddenly gone.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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