By Olivia Miwil
Pictures by Edmund Samunting.
KOTA KINABALU: Participants of this year’s RHB New Straits Times National Spell-It-Right (SIR) challenge are glad the words given for the preliminary round were easier.
Renee Nicole, 17, from SM Stella Maris here said she was confident to spell out 25 out of 30 words during the written test conducted at Universiti Malaysia Sabah here yesterday.
“Those words are easier to be spelt as compared to similar challenge held for the previous two years.
“Some of the words are commonly used or at least I had seen and heard them before,” she said after sitting for the 30-minute test with 563 secondary school students from 23 schools in the state.
Participants will be listened to audio recording on words to be spelt and its definition. The test comprises of three levels of difficulty on familiarity and the pronunciation of words.
Words given at the test are mostly scientific-related vocabulary and several are with more than four syllables such as excruciating, idiosyncrasy, and indistinguishable.
Meanwhile, first timer Yoshini Thiagarajan from SMK St Francis convent said it was a good experience for her to check on her vocabulary bank.
“Sitting for the test exposes me to words which I might not come across in daily life or class,” she said, adding her teacher had asked them to learn words via dictionary, online and newspaper.
Earlier in the morning, a batch of 357 pupils from 15 primary schools had also sat for the same test.
Alyaa Masarah, 10, from Sk Tanjung Aru I here said she spent whole night before to get to know as much words as possible from a dictionary.
“My preparation was quite last minute as teacher only told us about this challenge a day before. However, I am lucky for being able to spell all words given.”
This year, the country’s biggest spelling competition is highlighting words with silent letters.
Established in 2008 with the support of the Education Ministry, SIR is jointly organised by the NST and RHB Banking Group.
Top 100 for each primary and secondary school category will be competing in state challenge in near future.
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