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There's an excellent documentary, Spellbound, about the Scripps national spelling bee that follows five or six students from their school bee through the end of the national bee. It's not as good as Word Wars, which is about competetive tournament Scrabble, but it's still worth a view.
I'm a pretty good speller, my posts here notwithstanding (although I do have the excuse of having to type with one hand), but I've never been any good at spelling bees because I can't do the visualization thing and get lost spelling words orally when the word is too long. I have to be able to see it to know whether I've misspelled it.
I had a sixth grade girl who went to the state geography bee who had something similar happen to her. Her question was to list the five largest countries in the world by area. She asked for clarification as to whether the surface area of inland lakes and waterways was included, and whether governed territories were included. I was thinking, "Good girl", because we'd gone over this just the week before. Those factors make a difference in the ranking of the US and China. The judge didn't have an answer.
She answered that, if inland lakes, seas, and waterways are included, the answer is Russia, Canada, United States, China (PRC), and Brazil. If only land is included and territories are excluded, or if the territories included in the Republic of China are included in China's total, the answer is Russia, Canada, China, United States, and Brazil.
This is the correct answer. It was counted wrong, because the listed answer had China ahead of the United States, and only the first answer given is accepted regarless of how it's qualified.
I protested at the end of bee and was overruled without comment or review.
Gilda
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