You can watch these bright youngsters on ESPN60.com live, during the preliminary rounds. You can also take in all the action via ‘A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago‘. You could also see the Scripp’s official site. The secret to the Bee is not to over-think the words. In Round 2, a Massachusetts boy spelled ‘tarmac’: ptarmic.
Fifty semifinalists go at it again tomorrow (Thursday) between 10am and 1pm on ESPN. The finalists duke it out at 8:00pm on ABC. Brush up on your understanding of ‘Rule 12: End of Bee Procedure’:
If all spellers in a round misspell: If none of the spellers remaining in the spelling bee at the start of a round spells a word correctly during that round, all remain in the competition and a new round begins.
If a speller misspells the anticipated winning word in a one-word round:
A new round begins with all the spellers who spelled (correctly and incorrectly) in the previous round. These spellers spell in their original order.If only one speller in a round spells correctly: If only one speller spells correctly in a round, a new one-word round begins and the speller is given an opportunity to spell the next word on the list (anticipated winning word). If the speller succeeds in correctly spelling the anticipated winning word in this one-word round, the speller is declared the champion.
