How well do you spell? Better than 13-year-old national champion Zachary Cheng, who can nail ‘astrakhan’ and ‘psephology’?
Well, put your spellchecker away and put yourself to the T-E-S-T.
The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is now open for all schools around Australia and its Try the Bee practise tool can be used by anyone, including parents, grandparents and other curious adults.
So, do you know the correct spelling for your board with cheese and processed meats?
Or a word beginning with Q that means four-legged?
Or how many Ls or Ss are in the word that means to banish a doubt, feeling or myth?
Try the Bee reveals 30 reasonably easy words to be spelled.
It allows you to hear each word being said twice, and used in a sentence, which is both spoken and shown on screen. Participants are then asked to spell the word on screen using their keyboard.
Can you handle the P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E?
Last year’s Year 7-8 Bee winner Cheng, who attends Haileybury in Melbourne, admitted he had a brain fade over English spelling versus American spelling that caught him out in the final when he used a Z in pulverise instead of an S.
“That was really embarrassing,” said Zac, who didn’t blink, however, at spelling ‘iconoclast’ or ‘vacillate’ correctly to take the title.
(And in case you’re wondering, astrakhan is the black or grey curly fur from the skins of lambs, and psephology is the study of how people vote in elections).
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hopes Bee entries will surpass last year’s 61,000 and sayspractising against classmates, family members, or solo with the Try the Bee tool could help returning students better their 2022 scores.
“There’s nothing quite like a friendly competition to help you set goals for yourself and make learning even more enjoyable,” Mr Albanese said when he launched the Bee last month.
ABOUT THE BEE
● The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a free, online competition for students in Years 3-8.
● Students compete at their school in three levels: Green level for Years 3-4, Orange level for Years 5-6 and Red level for Years 7-8.
● They get 30 randomly selected words from their competition level and have 25 seconds to type each answer. The students with the most correct words in the fastest time progress to finals.
● Teachers can now register their students for the school round, which ends at 5pm AEST on Friday, August 18.
● State and territory finals will be held August 28 to September 1 and the national finals on September 6-7.
● The national champion in each age group wins a trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister, an iPad, HarperCollins book pack and a $1000 voucher for their school.
More details at spelling-bee.com.au
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