Scripps National Spelling Bee tweaks its rules to make ‘spell-off’ tiebreaker less likely

By BEN NUCKOLS WASHINGTON AP The Scripps National Spelling Bee won t be so quick to force spellers into a lightning-round tiebreaker to decide a champion this year a shift that follows criticism of the abrupt ending to last year s competition Related Articles The Met Gala is over but dandyism isn t Here s how to dress like a dandy in everyday life Kerry Kennedy is writing intimate book about her mother Ethel Kennedy SEE IT Kanye West storms out of Piers Morgan interview again Dear Abby Daughter partner can t share bed at parent s Inside the Met Gala Under a petal-filled sky guests honor Black style hail a monumental night Scripps has eliminated its requirement that the tiebreaker known as a spell-off be used when the bee finals are nearing the end of their two-hour broadcast window and a champion has not been decided Instead judges will have more discretion to let the bee play out even if it runs into overtime We don t have those constraints in place that will force us into a spell-off situation based on time It takes a lot of pressure off of that moment Corrie Loeffler the bee s executive director described The Associated Press We can keep going with regular competition rather than saying It s we re going to a spell-off Last year the top two spellers were tossed into the spell-off without even competing head-to-head in the traditional spelling bee format a move that rankled former champions and other bee aficionados Bruhat Soma who reported afterward that he practiced the tiebreaker every day for six months easily defeated Faizan Zaki Faizan returns for another crack at the title in this year s bee which begins May Once you reach a certain point in the finals the drama is really in watching the spellers take on the dictionary word by word stated Scott Remer a prolific spelling coach who works with Faizan Traditionally the idea behind the spelling bee has been that you use the information you re given you gather the clues you process the information you think about the word and then you take all of that synthesis of information and you provide a spelling The spell-off obviously tests a different set of skills The spell-off was first used in Harini Logan beat Vikram Raju during that contest but only after the pair had a traditional lengthy duel in which each misspelled four words Dev Shah didn t need a spell-off to win two years ago and he was outspoken about the edition saying I don t think it was a good bee There was no tiebreaker throughout greater part of the s and the bee had co-champions in three straight years from - Then came the infamous bee which ended in an eight-way tie when Scripps ran out of words tough enough to challenge an unusually strong group of competitors The bee was canceled because of the COVID- pandemic and it returned the next year under new leaders who made it clear they wished a sole champion Another rule change has already proven popular among the spelling society the return of a written test during the preliminary rounds Spellers who spell one word correctly and get one multiple-choice vocabulary question right on stage will then sit for a -question written test at the end of the first day Results of that test will be used to pare the field to about quarterfinalists and Scripps will also use the test scores to gauge the strength of the remaining spellers and inform the difficulty of words used in subsequent rounds Current and former spellers say the written test is a fairer way to move the competition along than doing everything at the microphone during lengthy rounds with wild variations in word difficulty I think having a written test as well as oral rounds allows for a better snapshot of a speller s holistic skills Shah commented During the s a written test reduced the field to about spellers making it even higher-stakes Scripps editorial director Molly Becker believes this version with a gentler cut strikes the right balance We ve heard from spellers that we like the fairness of the test because they re all being examined on the same exact words Becker announced Also the primary driver for bringing back the test is that the plan can continue to grow with the number of spellers Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since Follow his work here