Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
cientartifactstoliveanimals—penguins,maybe,orarmadillos.Lastyear,anervouskooka-
burra caused some excitement by leaving a little souvenir onstage during its brief appear-
ance.
“Well, they use them to entertain the audience,” her mom had explained. This less sin-
ister explanation hadn't even occurred to Caitlin. Anything that interrupted her laserlike
focus
was the enemy
!
Kennen Sparks of Utah and Zaroug Jaleel of Massachusetts both misidentify the major
river of Shaanxi Province as the Yangtze (it's the Yellow). Then, two rounds later, they
both miss questions on archaeological sites, making them the first two finalists to be elim-
inated. I notice, during this round, that the questions the kids struggle with aren't always
the ones you expect. Shantan Krovvidi of North Carolina earns a strike for not knowing
that Salisbury is the closest city to Stonehenge, while Kennen goes out for guessing that
the largest city in the West Bank is Jerusalem. (It's actually Hebron.) These are reasonably
well-known bits of cultural literacy, but the kids blank on them, even as they nail much
harderquestionsabouttheTurkishcityofIzmirortheislandsofVanuatu.Theirknowledge
has come from a firehose blast of atlases and encyclopedias, not a lifetime of travel and
media. It isn't lived in, like ours.
A Smithsonian curator enters, holding a gorilla skull for the kids to ignore while they're
asked for the name of the East African chain of volcanoes in which mountain gorillas live.
FourboysfailtocomeupwiththenameoftheVirungaMountains,includingSivaGangav-
arapu, who—heartbreakingly—wrote “Virunga Mts” on his card, then crossed it out and
began to write “Rwenzori” as time expired. Each time someone walks offstage, the pace of
play accelerates, the next round becoming just a little bit shorter. Suddenly, half the seats
are empty.
Thenextthreeroundsofquestionseliminateonecontestantapiece,intheorderlymanner
ofachildren'scounting rhyme.(“TenLittle IndianAmericans”?) Kenji'slittle Auto-Tuned
chirp of a voice, so reliable in earlier rounds, is unable to identify Mexicali, Mexico, in his
allotted twelve seconds, and then there were four. Ten-year-old Vansh doesn't know that
Clew Bay is in Ireland, and then there were three. Finally, in the tenth round, Shantan is
stumpedonthenameofaBulgarianportcity.Afterhisincorrectguess,helookstohisleft:
Eric Yang hasn't missed a single question, but Arjun and Shantan each entered the round
with one strike against them. If Arjun misses his question as well, Shantan will get a new
lease on life and could still make the finals.
“Arjun, which South American country has phased out its former currency, the sucre,
and adopted the United States dollar as its official currency?”
Arjun bites his lip. “Ecuador?” he tries.
“Ecuador is right!” announces Alex. Arjun lowers his head and pumps his fists quietly.
Shantanhasjustwonthethird-placeprize,a$10,000scholarship,buthestilllooksawfully
unsatisfied as he turns off his mike and rises to walk into the wings. He was so close.
