One of the top 15 winners of our video contest: censor, by Alex Zhong and Azan Choudry
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Do you have 750 seconds to learn 47 new words?
If so, we’re offering an especially entertaining way to do it. Take a look below at the work of the 15 winners, 14 runners-up and 21 honorable mentions from our Sixth Annual Vocabulary Video Contest, in which students were challenged to define one of our Words of the Day within 15 seconds.
Of all the contests we run on this site, this is our favorite to judge, and if you watch even a few we think you’ll see why.
Thank you to the nearly 1,500 students who participated, as well as to the teachers who devoted class time to the project. And thank you, too, for your patience as we took weeks to judge; we know you wouldn’t have wanted our deliberations to be frenetic.
As always, we chose finalists based on their originality, how well each showed an understanding of the word and its use in a specific context, and how clearly that was communicated. And, as always, we had to eliminate some great entries for failure to follow the directions. (We’re looking at you, acoustic, when we remind participants that you have to pronounce the word; at you, anticlimax, jounce and obliterate, when we reiterate that the part of speech must always be given; and at you, eviscerate, to point out that no matter how excellent the video, the word must still be spelled correctly.)
Enjoy, and don’t forget our upcoming poetry, podcast and summer reading contests!
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Winners
aquiline by Safiya Bhanpuri:
arrogance by Shawn Coulter:
autopsy by Sophia Pirani:
cacophonous by Ethan Che:
censor by Alex Zhong and Azan Choudry: See top of this post.
gargantuan by Raleigh Purvis and Kaleb Nichols:
ghastly by Daniel Langer:
illusion by Wyatt Cunningham:
nonchalant by Harrison Yardley:
pugnacious by Ana Wotjisiak and Ashley McFadden:
scotch by Jacob Rodriguez:
superfluous by Edward Wei:
upstage by Isabella Roccanova, Angelina Jannace and Fiona R.:
Honorable Mentions
catalyst by Connor Henwood
compilation by Thomas Turner
deluge by Victoria Lyudovyk
dulcet by Laura Barrow, Maggie Dinkins, Landon Lucas, William Siron and William Trapp
gastronomy by Willa Liu
insubordination by Will Reusch
legerdemain by Sam O.
loquacious by Defne Zeybek, Caroline Weinstein, Cooper Sharp and Ryan O’Neil
nebulous by Grace Sheridan
nonchalant by Makaylah Sheard
obliterate by Beckett
panache by Mai See Xiong
quip by Adriel Pupo
rile by Gabi Camilo and DaShuan Kincaid
sidle by Stella Urbano, Shamya Smith, and Dayana Arriaga
smithereens by Madison Lyon
tryst by Juliann Zhou
upstage by Ethan Vertal
usurp by Ella, Zoe, Piper, Mina, Ava and Isaiah
witless by Sean McCormick and Ted Sheahan
wizardry by Skyler Herrera, Gabriel Phelps, Evann Rodriguez
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The Learning Network runs contests for teenagers all year long. Check out our 2018-19 Contest Calendar to see what’s coming up this spring and summer.
