Park View students earn rare perfect scores on vocab challenge
Two students at Park View Elementary School have earned rare perfect scores on a national vocabulary exam. Third-grade student Shreyansh Vatsa and fourth-grader Michael McIntyre both got all 20 questions correct in the competition.
There are hundreds of teams across the country that compete in the WordMasters Challenge. Shreyansh was one of just 13 third-grade students nationwide who earned a perfect score, and Michael was one of only 58 fourth graders who was perfect.
The WordMasters Challenge is for third- through eighth-grade students. It emphasizes logic and reading comprehension with analogy problems. Three times a year, the students receive a set of words that are significantly harder than grade level. They take a 20-question test that asks them to find relationships between words.
A WordMasters Challenge question might look like:
raspy: silken :: ____________
(a) giant : colossal (b) neat : clean (c) gnarled : smooth (d) minute : tiny (e) homely : plain.
The student would need to recognize they were looking for words that are opposites, and identify that something ‘gnarled’ is the opposite of something that is ‘smooth’.
Michael McIntyre, fourth grade
Michael says he likes studying for the WordMaster quizzes because “I get smarter and they’re fun and challenging.” Michael often goes through the words with his mom. He recommends that other students study hard and understand all the different meanings of words. Despite his hard work, Michael didn’t expect a perfect score.
“When she (the teacher) said someone got 20, I was really surprised,” he said.
The favorite word Michael has learned so far is “colossal”. He wants to be an engineer when he grows up because he enjoys building things.
Shreyansh Vatsa, third grade
Shreyansh studies the words with his parents using flashcards. The favorite words he’s learned so far are “petite” (because it was new) and “sliver” (because it had more than one meaning). He likes the WordMasters because “it helps me get smarter and I learn a lot of new words.”
Shreyansh wants to be scientist and engineer when he grows up. He likes to play basketball in his free time.
Last year, Shreyansh was awarded a Continental Math League (CML) medallion for earning perfect scores on a CML contest that ask students to solve multi-step analytical problems.
The WordMasters Challenge program is administered by a company based in Indianapolis, Ind. Further information is available at: www.wordmasterschallenge.com.
Students who participate in the WordMasters competitions are coached and supported by the CCSD 89 challenge teachers. The Park View challenge teacher is Jessica Bainter. Learn more about the challenge program at: www.ccsd89.org/challenge
Posted: December 18, 2018