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District 181
Updated: July 29, 2012 6:08AM
Five perfect scores
Five students from Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Elementary District 181 earned highest honors in this year’s WordMasters Challenge, a national language arts competition that includes about 220,000 students enter annually.
The following students earned perfect scores in the Blue Division of the Challenge: Sara Thomas, third grade, Walker School; Daren Chen, fifth grade, Walker School; Omar Nabelsi, third grade, Elm School; Akshay Undevia, third grade, Elm School; and Max Paarlberg, fourth grade, Elm School.
As compared with their counterparts across the county on the February meet, only 82 other students earned Sarah Thomas’ score, and only 223 other students earned Daren Chen’s score. In the April competition, Omar Nabelsi and Akshay Undevia were among 113 students in third grade to earn a perfect score and Max Paarlberg was one of only 55 fourth grade students to earn a perfect score.
According to a WordMasters Challenge press release, other students who earned outstanding results were: Dov Chen, third grade, Walker; Joseph Sullivan, Emmett Wilson, Grace DeAngelis, Michael Graef, Allie Moreton and Lily Podracky, all Walker fifth-grade students.
Elm students with outstanding results were: Stefan Lekovic, Elizabeth Sieger, Katerina Chess, Ethan Greenwald, Jack Doppke and Luke Rosenblum, third grade 3; and Victor Buccellato, Derrick Brown, Perry Zhao, and Amy Zhao, fourth grade.
WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that encourages students to become familiar with a set of new words, which are more difficult that grade-level and then challenges them to use the words to complete analogies that express logical relationships.
