National Spelling Bee competitors facing challenges with short words

A four-letter word made Shradha Rachamreddy get third place in last year's Scripps National Spelling Bee. She missed the word "orel." Shradha almost won the competition the year before, so she had one more chance to participate. This year, she returned as one of 245 spellers in the bee held near Washington DC. Shradha realized she struggles with short, tricky words, so she made a list to practice them. No one has ever memorized all the 500,000 words in the dictionary used for the bee. The words are chosen by a panel of experts. Last year's champion, Dev Shah, mentioned that being a good speller means staying calm when faced with unfamiliar words. Aryan, a 13-year-old speller from Colorado, believes in using simple methods to figure out difficult words. N'Dom, another 13-year-old speller, mentioned that being on stage is less scary once you've experienced it before. Ghana has been sending spellers to the competition for years, with their best finish being a tie for 18th place in 2016. Returning spellers like Shradha learned from their mistakes and practiced hard. They know they might encounter words they don't know, but they are prepared to face the challenge. The competition also includes vocabulary questions, which are introduced in a friendly manner to help the spellers feel more comfortable.