Dictionary Skills

The Contest Summary

Contestants use dictionaries during the competition, which may be tabbed. Contest questions cover word origins and histories, parts of speech, pronunciation, variant spellings, plurals, alphabetizing and other such elements. Test questions are also taken from charts, tables and lists contained in the dictionary.

The subject matter of all tests is taken from the Merriam Webster's Intermediate Dictionary copyrights 2016 and 2020. Contestants may use other dictionaries in the contest, but the contest subject matter will be found in Webster's Intermediate 

The Contest Format

Each Dictionary Skills test consists of 40 objective and short answer questions to be completed in 20 minutes. 

Scoring

• +3 for each correct answer

• -2 for each incorrect answer

• No deduction is taken for skipped or unanswered items

Study Materials

In the link below, you'll find study materials to utilize as you practice for your event.  

Link to Study Materials  (You must login with a BISD account to access the materials.)