Top area high-school students matched wits in a verbal battle on campus last night.
The prize: $5,000 and a trip to the National Vocabulary Championship in New York.
But Central High School junior Hannah Zickgraf proved too tough for her competitors.
The event was run by the Game Show Network, which brought Dylan Lane - host of the Chain Reaction game show - along with giant TV screens, computerized podiums and an elaborate stage and lighting set-up to Harrison Auditorium in the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
In the first two rounds, contestants buzzed in to answer questions related to vocabulary words. In the final round, each contestant had two minutes to answer 20 questions using words highlighted in a paragraph.
The competition seemed to drain Zickgraf mentally and physically by the end of the night, and she forced a tired smile while posing with her giant check for a long photo shoot.
"If I had known, I would've thrown [the competition] in the first round," she joked.
Zickgraf said that she was considering attending Penn "if [she] can get in."
Philadelphia is one of eight places where students will compete to qualify for the national championship and a $40,000 scholarship.
Contestant Michael Dinkins, an 11th grader at Germantown High School, said that when offered the chance to compete, he "decided to take it."
"My parents didn't have any money for my college," he said.
The audience consisted of a few hundred family members and friends of the contestants.
A fire alarm interrupted the competition halfway through. It was a false alarm, but it still delayed the game for half an hour until the Philadelphia Fire Department arrived to turn it off.
The event staff passed the time by throwing free shirts and hats into the audience, which jumped to its feet, arms waving.
During another interruption, this one planned, two airline tickets were raffled off.
The show was run in three rounds, narrowing the contestants from 100 to a sole winner.
Central High School students dominated the finals, taking 1st through 3rd places.
