The Spellmaster, the all island school spelling competition, has turned a few students into celebrities in their towns and schools; two girls from Mahmud Ladies College Kalmunai admitted this when they said that they had friends coming up to them showing the newspapers with a picture of them or even if their names were mentioned, some even call or send them messages when they are on TV. This competition has turned out to be quite an experience for those students who don't receive this kind of exposure, particularly those contestants from the outstations.
This time yet again, the competitors were put through 2 rounds of words. The first round consisted of letters of the alphabet except of course the letters 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' as they had a limited number of words and each letter had a choice of 5 words. This worked as a disadvantage to the competitors as most of them had studied all the words within those letters, for instance Nardhya Grero, who said she would've selected 'X' but it wasn't available. Some contestants remained undeterred by this, namely, Murtaza Zohair from Burhani Serendib School Colombo who had started studying the dictionary from the letter 'A' and Rashidah Hassan from Good Shepherd Convent Kandy who chose the letter 'Q' because she liked "taking risks", and it was worth the risk as the word she got was "Quartz" which she spelt without any hesitation. In the second round of words the spellers were given the opportunity to select a word from a pool of 50 words.
After the two rounds of words only three contestants, Althaf Rahuman from St.Anthony's College (Boys') Kandy, Fathima Shafana from Mahmud Ladies College Kalmunai and Wasana Sevwandi from Southlands College Galle got both words given to them correct. Eight contestants got one word right, this included Sarith from Trinity College Kandy, who raised the bar and had a lot of contestants intimidated by his spelling dexterity, till now he had never misspelt a word. Speaking on misspelling a word for the first time only in the top 20 stage of the competition, he said "it had to happen sometime and here it was", it seemed his lucky streak was ended, but it was not to be he made it through to the next round.
Three contestants were left to battle it out for 1 more place, namely, Jeevantha from Maliyadeva College Kurunegala, who got both words given to him correct last week, who at the beginning of the competition said it gave him confidence to face the next rounds, however, he's learnt not to be over confident as he's seen a lot of good spellers bowing out of the competition because they were over-confident, Murtaza from Burhani Serendib School Colombo and Manudhya from Hillwood College Kandy.
Murtaza misspelt the word "Corundum" by adding an extra ‘r’ to the spelling giving him three strikes and making him the 7th contestant to bow out of the competition. This left Manudhya and Jeevantha to battle it out in a "Best of 3", both got the 1st word given to them wrong, Manudhya got the next word "Pseud" correct putting the pressure on Jeevantha who misspelt the 2nd word as well, Manudhya got the last word incorrect giving Jeevantha an opportunity to come back, however he was inaccurate in spelling and was the 8th person to leave the competition.
Jeevantha and Murtaza joined Ramachandran Delaxshan from Highlands College Hatton, Chathushka Rambukwella from Trinity College Kandy, Indeevarie Gunathilaka from St.Agnes' Balika Maha Vidyalaya Ratnapura, Chrishari De Alwis from Good Shepherd Convent Kandy, Lanka Kumarasinghe of Swarnapali Balika Maha Vidyalaya Anuradhapura and Ummesalama Hussain of Burhani Serendib School Colombo who were seen bowing out in the previous 3 weeks from the top 20.
On leaving the competition Jeevantha said he was used to tie breakers, however, there was a first time for everything, he learned a lot and thanked his father and others for standing by him, he wished the rest of the competitors the best of luck and continued to thank CIMA and Sirasa "for encouraging kids to reach into the depths of the dictionary". Murtaza said he could have done better and that even though he was calm before he got excited towards the end and believed that success in spelling a word depended on the frame of mind, he too thanked everyone for their support.
The students from the outstations continue to impress. Watch Sirasa TV every Saturday from 6 pm - 7 pm to see who will be eliminated next and watch the remaining 12 battle it out to remain in the competition till the Spellmaster is selected.
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