Goodyear girl falls short at Spelling Bee
May 31, 2012, 1:45 PM | Updated: Jun 4, 2012, 10:34 pm
Goodyear teenager Sumaita Mulk came up short at the National Spelling Bee, eliminated Thursday in the sixth round.
Mulk, who reached the morning semifinals, missed out on the final round on the word ‘quatuor.’ The 13-year-old Arizona champion spelled out “q-u-a-t-u-o-r-e.”
According to dictionary.com, quatuor means quartet and is applied mainly to instrumental compositions.
The semifinals saw 50 competitors ticking off a slew of words including “cholecystitis,” “rhonchus,” “Gleichschaltung” and “maquillage.”
Nine finalists are battling for the winner’s haul of $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond, a $5,000 scholarship, $2,600 in reference works from the Encyclopedia Britannica and an online language course.
The champion will be crowned Thursday evening.