Two more spellers feel the heat

The Spellmaster, the all island school spelling competition that has caught on the imagination of viewers and needs no introduction, has now reached a point of tense competition and the competitors are stretched to the core, where only those who can absorb pressure will ultimately survive.

Sixteen very tense contestants took the stage in the third programme of the top 20, where every week 2 contestants will be eliminated until the top 4 spellers are found to compete in the finals. Most students taking part in the competition who have gotten this far seem to have one important aspect in common; they all take reading as a hobby. Delaxshan from Highlands College Hatton who said he reads a lot prepared for the competition by picking on all the new words that came his way whilst reading.

In this round of the competition, 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. Fathima Rustha from Mahmud Ladies' College Kalmunai, who spent her holiday with the dictionary, said she was worried about getting the words with 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' but we weren't offering them. On a positive note, Rukshala from Gateway College Colombo said it's a pity we weren't giving the option of selecting the letters 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' but there are other letters in the alphabet.

Each letter had a choice of 5 words. This round benefitted the participants when it came to spelling the word as they were given the 1st letter of the word, especially for tricky words with a completely different pronunciation like "Aegis", a word that was given to contestant number 16, Murtaza from Burhani Serendib School Colombo. In the second round of words the spellers were given the opportunity to select a word from a pool of 50 words.

At the end of the 2 rounds only four contestants got both words right, namely, Althaf Rahuman from St.Anthony's College (Boys) Kandy, Jeewantha Bandara from Maliyadeva College Kurunegala, Archana Perera from St.Peter's College Colombo 4 and keeping up to his standard Sarith Bandara from Trinity College Kandy. Of the remaining twelve contestants 10 got one word right making them eligible for the next round, whereas 2 got both words wrong.

Consequently, the two contestants leaving the competition this time around were Ramachandran Delaxshan from Highlands College Hatton and Chathushka Rambukwella from Trinity College Kandy. These two then join 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 2 weeks from the top 20.

Speaking on his experience in the competition Delaxshan said he enjoyed participating and hopes to take part again next year, he was very happy to have gotten this far and that Spellmaster urges students to refer the dictionary and helps with vocabulary. Chathushka who got notice that he was taking part in the competition only half an hour before it was to start, said he's not sad to leave the competition as Sarith was still very much in the competition, displaying a great sense of school spirit making his school proud, continued to say that he too is happy to have gotten this far and advised that spellings are important specially to guys like him who study science as they never pay attention to it.

Watch Sirasa TV every Saturday from 6 pm - 7 pm to see who will be eliminated next and watch the remaining 14 battle it out to remain in the competition till the Spellmaster is selected.
On top are the names of the 14 remaining spellers' from the Top 20: