Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Farnsworth. “Then you watch the state finals, and you're like—” Here he makes the noise
of a slide whistle deflating.
The questions can—in fact,
have to—
be this hard because the kids who make it to na-
tionals are so scrupulously prepared. A few weeks ago I drove out to the exurbs ten miles
east of Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Washington, to meet Caitlin Snaring, the impos-
siblyself-possessedhighschoolsophomorewho,in2007,becameonlythesecondgirlever
to win the bee. But that was Caitlin's second run at the title; the year before, she'd been
ousted in the prelims.
“Doyourememberthequestionthatyouwentoutoninyourfirstbee?”Iasked,knowing
she did.
“ 'What do you call the line of thunderstorms that precedes a cold front?'” she recited
verbatim. (Caitlin says she has a “near-photographic” memory.) I didn't know the answer
either: a squall line.
“It's not technically a physical geography term,” she grumbled, apparently still stung by
theloss.“It'sjustsomethingsailorssay.ButIwasreallydisappointed.Ithoughtthatwould
be my only chance.” After the loss, she cried, briefly, and gave her mom, Traci, a hard
time for never having found her a copy of the out-of-print
National Geographic Almanac,
which, it turned out, had included the crucial fact.
“Wetalked abouthowhardthequestionsweregoingtobe,andhowharditwasgoingto
beonTVunderthepressure,”remembered Traci.“Isaid,'Doyouwanttodothisagain,or
don't you?' The next day she had a list of more topics she wanted me to buy for her, ready
to study. She wanted to do it all over again.”
For two years, Caitlin spent six or seven hours a day doing nothing but studying geo-
graphy. No days off, no weekends off. She always had a topic or a map in her lap—in the
backseat ofthecar,onthebleachers atheryoungerbrother'sbaseball games.Shefilledten
three-ring binders with lists—mountains, islands, cities on rivers—and used colored mark-
ers to mark locations on hundreds of maps. She always prepared two copies: one with la-
bels and one without, so she could test herself flash card-style. Traci remembered Caitlin
advancing across the map like Napoleon's army, country by country: “One week she'd fo-
cus on, say, India, and we would just check out every topic about India in the library, look-
ingforanythingnew.”Thephrase“anythingnew”strikesmeasfunny:Caitlin'sgeography
knowledge had become so comprehensive that she was literally
running out of new facts to
study
!
*
She studied smarter as well as harder. Her previous year's bee experience had allowed
her to analyze National Geographic's question style, and she began to see patterns. So she
boughtvideotapesofeverypreviousbeefinalandmadeadatabaseofeveryquestionasked.
(Having worked out a very similar regimen before going on
Jeopardy!,
I am probably one
of the very few people in the world who could nod appreciatively at this story without in-
