by Breelyn Sirk

Created on: June 01, 2009   Last Updated: August 26, 2010

Young women from all around the world have dreamed of becoming Miss Universe for over 50 years. It is the ultimate title in beauty and grace, as well as a symbol that unites all of the world's diverse nations. There are devoted fans of the pageant that love to see the different cultures of the world, but not everyone may know how this particular pageant is judged. The pageant began in 1952 and the judging has changed a lot throughout the years. The current way the Miss Universe pageant is judged is a complicated and tedious process that takes two weeks to complete.

The first set of judging is called the "preliminary round"; the majority of it takes place off camera. This process has a panel of judges appraise the 80 or so contestants in three areas: interviews, swimsuit competition, and evening gown competition. The interview stage consists of each judge spending time with each delegate getting to know about each of their triumphs, personality, life goals, and ultimate dreams. The swimsuit competition has the participants model one of a variety of swimsuit styles provided by a sponsor. The evening gown competition is also modeling, but this time the models wear gowns of their own choice. After the three events are completed, the judges deliberate and give delegate a score on each round, and the 15 with the highest tally of scores become the semi-finalists.

The semi-finalists are revealed during the televised part of the pageant, and there is a new panel of judges that usually include a couple of celebrities. The 15 contestants re-do the swimsuit competition for the new panel of judges and the televised show, the judges then give a score for each woman and the 5 who score the lowest are cut, bringing the number of finalists to 10. Next is the evening gown competition, the 10 finalists model their evening gowns and the judges score them, the bottom 5 are cut once again and the contest is left with 5 finalists.

The final event has each of the delegates answer a randomly chosen question; the questions are important ones that challenge the women's intelligence and morals. Since the judges and broadcast is in English, the contestants who do not speak English are provided with a translator as well; the judges then contemplate the answer of each of the final 5 contests and give a score for the question round. All of the scores for each delegate are then tallied up, and the woman with the highest score gets the crown of Miss Universe.

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