Dictionary Skills

Thorough knowledge of the dictionary is a way to increase a student’s ability to find the information that is needed for class work as well as everyday living. The subject matter of all tests is taken from Merriam-Webster’s Intermediate Dictionary.  Contestants may use other dictionaries in the contest, but the correct test answers will be found in the official dictionary.

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