05 May 2014| last updated at 02:09PM
By OLIVIA MIWIL | olivia@nst.com.my
CONCENTRATION: A mistake in the finals almost cost Nur Izzahtul the crown
KOTA KINABALU: SHORT, simple words caught Nur Izzahtul Diyanah Mohd Daud by surprise but she kept her nerve to clinch the top prize in the state-level RHB-NST Spell-It-Right (SIR) challenge here yesterday.
She misspelled "chary" as "cherry" in the final round, but was spot on with "profligate", her next word, making up for her earlier mistake.
That earned her the RM3,000 prize money and the right to represent Sabah in the national championship.
The Form Five student from SMK Lok Yuk Likas said the error taught her to concentrate more on descriptions for the following words.
"What I did onstage was funny because I simply blurted out the spelling for a word, which obviously meant the fruit instead of the exact definition of chary.
"That's why I closed my eyes, so that I could focus on the description in the next round," she said, adding that an American-based examination and an Oxford Advance dictionary helped her prepare for the challenge.
The two other contestants in the final tiebreaker rounds were first runner-up Jasmine Chuah Jin Mei from SM Tinggi Kota Kinabalu and second runner-up Richard J. Buntol from SMK St Michael.
The second prize winner bagged RM2,500, third RM2,000, fourth RM1,500 and fifth RM1,000.
Five consolation prizes brought home RM200 each.
Consolation prize winner Wilson Isaac Mojilip from SMK La Salle Tanjung Aru could have been competing with the top three winners but for the words "philistine" and "filiopietistic".
Announcer Alan Bligh said: "I feel your pain," after he corrected Mojilip for spelling the words as "filistine" and "philliopietistic".
The prizes were presented by NSTP Kota Kinabalu branch manager Roy Goh and RHB Bank Bhd Sabah regional director Siaw Kok Chee.
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