Severn Student Represents Maryland in National Geographic Bee

Neel Lakhanpal, a seventh-grader at represented Maryland in National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.

The National Geographic Bee is an annual contest that tests the geographic knowledge of American fourth- to eighth-graders. In order to make it to nationals, students had to win their individual school’s contest, finish within the top 100 in their state on a written qualifying test and win their state-wide competition.

On Tuesday morning, 54 state-level champions gathered at the Washington Plaza Hotel to try to earn a spot in the finals, which will be held Wednesday at the National Geographic Society’s headquarters and will be moderated by “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek.

The preliminary national competition had nine rounds, each with a different theme, such as cultural geography, geography of current events, physical geography and UNESCO world heritage sites. Neel answered four of his nine questions correctly.

Among the questions Neel aced were “In February 2011, restoration began on 10 silent films from the early 1900's that were thought to have been lost until the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library gave copies to the United States. The library is in a city southwest of Lake Ladoga in what country?” (the answer was Russia) and “One country has promoted the sport of cricket in Tianjin, Dalian, and other cities in an effort to become a successful international competitor in the sport. Name this Asian country.” (the answer was China)

Neel said the questions in this round were a lot harder than they were in the state-wide competition. He said that the hardest question he got was his sixth-round question, which asked: "Which surface would have a higher albedo value—asphalt or fresh snow?" (The correct answer turned out to be fresh snow).

Four of the 54 students at nationals answered each of their nine questions correctly, automatically securing spots in the finals. Eleven other students answered eight out of nine questions correctly, so a tie-breaker round had to be held to determine the last six finalists.

Students from Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah will be in the finals Wednesday morning.

After finishing the preliminary round, Neel said he was "kind of happy" with how he did, but quickly pointed out that because he's in seventh grade he still has one more year to compete in the Bee. "I will do it again," Neel said.

Neel said he prepared for the competition mostly by studying from Atlases. His parents and siblings were present at the Washington Plaza during the competition to cheer him on.

The National Geographic Channel will be airing a four-part series covering this year’s National Geographic Bee from June 13 through June 16 at 6:30 p.m.