Spelling

One of the newer game-shows on Channel 5, Spell Cast features some primary-school children attempting to spell words to advance in a... spelling competition. The structure of the rounds is OK but could have been done better, in my opinion. I think they should give the children like 20 seconds and make them type in the whole word or something like that, rather than make it 5 for them to enter the missing letter. Why? This is because people who don't know the word often can guess by the pronunciation what the word should be - examples would include (W)RENCH and AUTUM(N). The five-letter anagrams seem easy (especially when they involved a Q, as they wouldn't be so mean as to use Q non-U words, probably). Some of the words are also overly difficult; REYKJ(A)VIK (the capital of Iceland) is a nasty example.

The Tic-Tac-Toe round has many interesting possibilities. It's interesting to note the first square people pick (the common strategy would be 6, 7, 10 or 11) - someone picked 16, I think, as the first square in the game.

If I were to design a spelling test, however, using the Spell Cast format but for an older target audience, you might expect to see something like this:

MCQ
1: reville | reveille | reveilly
2: injira | injera | injerah
3: lutea | lutae | letae
4: silicolocous | silicoloccous | silicolocus
5: illicited | elicited | ilicited
6: Valifor | Valyfor | Valefor
7: Reykyavik | Reykjavik | Reykjavyk
8: muriatic | murietic | muriaitic
9: atalaia | atalaya | atelaya
10: ali | aali | aalii

Missing Letters
1: r?gatoni
2: s?utane
3: rebo?nt
4: adheren?
5: m?nuend
6: caz?que
7: de?rweed
8: c?olate
9: ron?avels
10: unmit?es

I can't possibly do a round 3 format, so never mind about round 3...

Anyway, I best be going off now...

solutions to the above
MCQ:
1. reveille (a morning bugle coil)
2. injera (a type of Ethiopian bread)
3. lutea (plural of luteum (a hormone secreting body))
4. silicoloccous (pertaining to sand)
5. elicited (drawn forth)
6. Valefor (a demon)
7. Reykjavik (the capital of Iceland)
8. muriatic (syn. for hydrochloric)
9. atalaya (a watchtower)
10. aalii (a tropical tree)
letters:
1. rigatoni (a tubular pasta)
2. soutane (a long garment worn by clergymen)
3. reboant (resounding loudly)
4. adherend (the surface to which an adhesive sticks)
5. minuend (in a - b = c, the b)
6. cazique (a tropical oriole)
7. deerweed (a bush-like herb)
8. cholate (a chemical salt)
9. rondavels (a South African round hut)
10. unmitres (to strip of the rank of bishop)