Five contestants from Los Angeles County and two from Orange County correctly spelled their words in the 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee Tuesday to advance to the third round.
The Los Angeles and Orange County spellers will return to the stage at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., Tuesday afternoon. The round will conclude Wednesday, followed by the announcement of which spellers will advance to Thursday’s finals.
The spellers took a multiple-choice test with 12 spelling words and 14 vocabulary questions on Monday, part of the qualifying process to advance to the finals. The test is considered the bee’s first round.
Contestants spelling their third-round words correctly can advance to the finals, which are limited to a maximum of 50 spellers. Spellers’ scores are plotted on a chart beginning at 36. Spellers at each consecutive scoring level are added until 50 spellers have been attained.
Spellers receive one point for each of the 12 items correctly identified in the spelling portion of the test, one point for each of the 12 items correctly identified in the initial vocabulary section, three points for a correct answer to the lone item in the second vocabulary section and three points for a correct answer to the lone item in the third vocabulary section.
The Los Angeles County spellers are:
— Ayle Guevarra, a seventh-grader at Ernest Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth, who correctly spelled cruse, a small vessel, such as a jar or pot, for holding a liquid;
— Dina Miranda, an eighth-grader at Stanford Middle School in Long Beach, who correctly spelled intermittent, an adjective meaning coming and going at intervals ;
— Chloe Na, a sixth-grader at Tesoro del Valle Elementary School in Valencia, who correctly spelled liquesce, a verb meaning to liquefy;
— Joseph Vicente, a fifth-grader at Good Shepherd Catholic School in Beverly Hills, who correctly spelled novercal, an adjective relating to, or characteristic of a stepmother; and
— Joshua Villanova, a seventh-grader at Traweek Middle School in West Covina, who correctly spelled objurgation, a harsh rebuke.
The Orange County spellers are:
— Dean Alkhairy, a seventh-grader at Fairmont Private Schools’ North Tustin Campus, who correctly spelled mezzanine, a low-ceilinged story between two main stories of a building, and;
— Nicholas D’Sa, an eighth-grader at St. Cecilia Catholic School in Tustin, who correctly spelled nepotism, a noun meaning favoritism, as in appointment to a job, based on kinship.
The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below, with contestants ranging in age from 7 to 15.
The field consists of spellers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, along with American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense schools in Europe.
Seven foreign nations are also represented — the Bahamas, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.
The bee is intended “to inspire children to improve their spelling, increase their vocabularies and develop correct English usage that will help them all their lives,” according to Paige Kimble, the bee’s executive director and 1981 champion.