Map experts prep for unpredictable National Geographic Bee

Map experts prep for unpredictable National Geographic Bee

Kapil, an 11-year-old 6th-grader from Hoover, Alabama, who has encyclopedic recall of far-flung places, couldn't name the largest port city in Georgia (Savannah) and was bounced.

Kapil will join 53 other state-level champions on Monday in Washington for the preliminary rounds of the bee.

The finals will be held on Wednesday, with the winner receiving a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to Alaska and Glacier Bay National Park and a lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society.

The finals, which will be taped for broadcast on National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD, have a game show-type format, with pre-taped segments, quirky scoring and questions that are sometimes subjective.

[...] the kids are similar — dedicated and ambitious, aspiring surgeons and scientists — and they set other extracurricular activities aside in order to expand their knowledge of maps and borders, nations, cities, cultures and history.