Post by Charity on Mar 4, 2007 20:23:05 GMT -5
A voluminous vocabulary takes local student to national contest
Lindsay Lancaster
Although Lia Campbell looks like an average teenager she is anything but. The 16-year-old Laurel Park home school student is the furthest thing from a stereotypical blonde.
Living dictionary might be a more suitable description.
Campbell is one of 50 finalists out of 30,000 teenagers around the country who earned an all-expense-paid trip to New York City to compete in the first National Vocabulary Championship for high school students.
Campbell and senior Anna Brinkman, 17, of Charlotte, are the only North Carolinians in the national finals. They will compete Monday at the New York Public Library for the grand prize, a $40,000 college scholarship.
"I really don't know how ready I am," Campbell says. "There's a lot of words that I don't know."
And a lot she does know.
Catoptric, for instance, (of or relating to mirrors and reflected images), and sudorific (causing or increasing sweat), and rodomontade (pretentious boasting or bragging).
Her favorite word is defenestrate, which means "to throw something or someone out of a window," she says.
Although she's never used the word in a conversation, she'd sure like to.
To prepare for the competition, Campbell pores over the dictionary, making lists of words not yet stored in her brain. Her parents help her study and they often quiz her.
Between her home-school studies, she spends as much time as she can studying for the competition.
"I've been increasing the time (studying) as the day draws closer," she said.
The game
The three-hour competition of three rounds will air as a one-hour special at 8 p.m. on Sunday, April 15, on GSN, the Game Show Network. The network took the format of a traditional scholastic competition and made it fun, said Deb McBride, GSN's manager of public relations.
The first round, called Vocabulary Velocity, will consist of five heats of 10 contestants. In each heat, contestants have their own lectern, buzzer and LCD touch-screen. Three words will be displayed for competitors and the audience. Contestants must buzz in first for the chance to identify which word is furthest in meaning from the other two.
For example, the three words could be cadge, panhandle and bequeath. Cadge is to beg or to sponge, panhandle is to stop people on the street and ask for food or money, and bequeath is to give or leave by will. Bequeath is the furthest in meaning from cadge and panhandle.
"It's really about speed, and their knowledge and being able to quickly comprehend the meaning of the words," McBride said.
The first four contestants in each heat to get a correct answer move on to the second round.
Twenty students will compete in round two, Word Medley. Contestants, along with audience members, will see about 15 questions covering synonyms, antonyms, homophones and Latin word roots.
"They get a point for each correct answer and no points for an incorrect answer," McBride said. "We take the top five and they're moving on to round three."
During the third round, the Final Word, one contestant at a time gets a sentence, which the audience can also see. An example sentence would be, "The thief was positively stupefied as her desire for valuable items was insatiable; she was struck dumb by the plenitude of ornate artifacts."
The host then asks the contestant a question about the sentence, such as: Which word comes from the Latin for "not enough" and could be replaced by "ravenous?"
The answer is insatiable.
"The difficulty increases the longer you stay in the round," McBride said.
more
www.hendersonvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070303/NEWS/703030330/1042/NEWS
Lindsay Lancaster
Although Lia Campbell looks like an average teenager she is anything but. The 16-year-old Laurel Park home school student is the furthest thing from a stereotypical blonde.
Living dictionary might be a more suitable description.
Campbell is one of 50 finalists out of 30,000 teenagers around the country who earned an all-expense-paid trip to New York City to compete in the first National Vocabulary Championship for high school students.
Campbell and senior Anna Brinkman, 17, of Charlotte, are the only North Carolinians in the national finals. They will compete Monday at the New York Public Library for the grand prize, a $40,000 college scholarship.
"I really don't know how ready I am," Campbell says. "There's a lot of words that I don't know."
And a lot she does know.
Catoptric, for instance, (of or relating to mirrors and reflected images), and sudorific (causing or increasing sweat), and rodomontade (pretentious boasting or bragging).
Her favorite word is defenestrate, which means "to throw something or someone out of a window," she says.
Although she's never used the word in a conversation, she'd sure like to.
To prepare for the competition, Campbell pores over the dictionary, making lists of words not yet stored in her brain. Her parents help her study and they often quiz her.
Between her home-school studies, she spends as much time as she can studying for the competition.
"I've been increasing the time (studying) as the day draws closer," she said.
The game
The three-hour competition of three rounds will air as a one-hour special at 8 p.m. on Sunday, April 15, on GSN, the Game Show Network. The network took the format of a traditional scholastic competition and made it fun, said Deb McBride, GSN's manager of public relations.
The first round, called Vocabulary Velocity, will consist of five heats of 10 contestants. In each heat, contestants have their own lectern, buzzer and LCD touch-screen. Three words will be displayed for competitors and the audience. Contestants must buzz in first for the chance to identify which word is furthest in meaning from the other two.
For example, the three words could be cadge, panhandle and bequeath. Cadge is to beg or to sponge, panhandle is to stop people on the street and ask for food or money, and bequeath is to give or leave by will. Bequeath is the furthest in meaning from cadge and panhandle.
"It's really about speed, and their knowledge and being able to quickly comprehend the meaning of the words," McBride said.
The first four contestants in each heat to get a correct answer move on to the second round.
Twenty students will compete in round two, Word Medley. Contestants, along with audience members, will see about 15 questions covering synonyms, antonyms, homophones and Latin word roots.
"They get a point for each correct answer and no points for an incorrect answer," McBride said. "We take the top five and they're moving on to round three."
During the third round, the Final Word, one contestant at a time gets a sentence, which the audience can also see. An example sentence would be, "The thief was positively stupefied as her desire for valuable items was insatiable; she was struck dumb by the plenitude of ornate artifacts."
The host then asks the contestant a question about the sentence, such as: Which word comes from the Latin for "not enough" and could be replaced by "ravenous?"
The answer is insatiable.
"The difficulty increases the longer you stay in the round," McBride said.
more
www.hendersonvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070303/NEWS/703030330/1042/NEWS