Spelling can be fun, but when confronted by the best, it can be nerve racking. The Spellmaster not only checks out your knowledge in terms of spellings but helps one to understand how good you are at handling pressure and holding cool to emerge a winner amongst stiff competition. The Western province is known to [...]

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The Sundaytimes Sri Lanka

CIMA Spellmaster 2012 – “Not just skill, require luck as well”

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Spelling can be fun, but when confronted by the best, it can be nerve racking. The Spellmaster not only checks out your knowledge in terms of spellings but helps one to understand how good you are at handling pressure and holding cool to emerge a winner amongst stiff competition.

The Western province is known to be the most competitive and this year round was no exception, with over 1,700 students entering the Spellmaster competition and 719 qualifying from the dictation rounds to the pre quarters. The competition spanned 3 days with 6 competitions conducted to select the 120 contestants who would qualify to the Quarter Finals of this prestigious competition.

Contestants were seen stressed and nervous as stiff competition was expected with 21 schools having 15 or more of the 20 spellers entering the competition qualifying to the pre-quarter finals from the preliminaries. It was good to note the likes of Jeelan Central College and Muslim Central College Kalutara giving the Colombo schools a run for their money having all 20 eligible entrants qualifying and participating in the competition.

The bar has been raised with the big names making a comeback; for instance, Archana Perera from St.Peter’s College Colombo 4 who was 1st runner-up last year, as well as 3rd runner-up Vasika Udurawane of S.Thomas’s College Mount Lavinia who said that nerves got the best of him last year, and as the boys from S.Thomas’ said they would try to “match-up” to his standards.

Students enter the competition in the hope of getting through and becoming the next Spellmaster, those who missed out said it was due to misspelling by a letter or they just got excited once they were in the limelight. Majority of the contestants passing through said besides the luck of getting a word one can handle the trick to spelling a word correctly is to listen to the word given carefully, repeat the word to the table as well as getting the table to repeat the word and breaking it down.

The schools to stand out with 5 or more spellers making it to the next round were Holy Cross College Gampaha, Ave Maria Convent Negombo, Holy Family Convent Bambalapitiya, S.Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia, St.Lawrence’s Convent Colombo 06, St.Peter’s College Colombo 04, Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo 05, and S.Thomas’ Preparatory School Kollupitiya.

This Sunday watch Sirasa TV at 6 pm as the students from the Southern Province fight it out for 70 seats in the quarter finals.




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