The competition has four segments: preliminaries, quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals. It is a single-elimination event, meaning a contestant is out after misspelling a word—except at the end of the spelling bee. If every contestant in the final round misspells his or her word, all remain in the competition for another round. If only one speller answers correctly in the finals, he or she must then spell the potential winning word. If they cannot, then all the spellers from the previous round return. The final authority on the spelling of words is the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.
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