Six Texan national spelling bee semifinalists face tougher parameters (Quiz)
Post-pandemic, the bee made changes to its format
May 31, 2023
OXON HILL, Md. — Navneeth Murali would strongly prefer the Scripps National Spelling Bee get rid of the onstage, multiple-choice vocabulary questions introduced to the competition two years ago.
“It’s sort of hit or miss, the onstage vocab format, and it’s sort of brutal in my opinion,” the 17-year-old former speller said.
The vocabulary questions are part of a series of changes to the post-pandemic bee, which is leaner and, in some ways, meaner. Accomplished spellers can be bounced from the bee without ever misspelling a word. And, because there is no alternative path to the bee as there was in the late 2010s, the regional bees spellers must win to qualify can be incredibly tense, and sometimes shocking. Last year’s national runner-up, Vikram Raju, didn’t make it back in his final year of eligibility.
The bee began Tuesday with the preliminary rounds and concludes Thursday. The tweaks help ensure the bee finishes on schedule with a sole champion — an important consideration after the eight-way tie of 2019. But some in the spelling community say the changes make the competition more dependent on luck and less about rewarding spellers for their years spent mastering roots and language patterns and exploring the farthest reaches of Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary.
On Tuesday, during their initial appearances onstage at a convention center outside Washington, spellers were asked to spell one word and define another, both from a list provided in advance. Of the 229 spellers, 57 were ousted for misspelling (24.9%), while 33 of the 172 who spelled their first word correctly (19.2%) got vocabulary answers wrong.
"Scripps has done a good job of evolving and not staying fixed in place, even if some of the particular choices they make, I would not myself have made if I were in their shoes," Scott Remer said. Remer is a former speller, study guide author and coach who is tutoring 29 competitors in this year's bee.
In April, it was reported that the state is home to the most Scripps National Spelling Bee winners in the competition’s 95-year history. This year, six semifinalists hail from Texas. The ages of spellers Jayden Zheng, Tarini Nandakumar, Faizan Zaki, Arnav Tonde, Kirsten Tiffany Santos and Siyona Kandala range from 11 to 13.
The six Texans will continue to vie for the championship trophy at the televised semifinals airing on ION Television Wednesday, May 31, from 8-10 p.m. EST.