Memorial Middle School will be participating in the National
Geographic Bee. The Bee is open to
students in grades four through eight who have not reached their 15th
birthday on or before September 1, 2013. The Bee is sponsored by the National
Geographic Society. With a first-place
prize of a $50,000 college scholarship, the Bee is
designed to encourage the teaching and study of geography. Other prizes are also awarded at the national level.
There are three levels of competition: school, state, and
national. To advance to
the state level, the one winning student from each school must take the written
multiple choice Qualifying Test. As many
as 100 of the highest-scoring students advance to the state level. The first-place winner from the state Bee advances
to the national level.
Questions at all levels of the Bee address the subject of
geography in its broadest sense. Some questions
will require knowledge of the names of places, a skill of basic geography, or of
the location of cultural and physical features.
The distribution and patterns of languages, religions, economic
activities, populations, and political systems will also be covered. Students may be asked about cultural and physical
regions or about physical phenomena, such as tectonic activity, landforms,
climates, bodies of water, soils, and flora and fauna. The changes in places and regions through
time, including how people have modified the environment, may be
addressed. Tools geographers use, such
as maps, instruments, graphs, and statistics, may be the subject of other
questions.
Bee questions are designed to test a student’s knowledge of
geography. The format calls for brief
answers, usually one word or a phrase.
Questions may require interpretation of maps, graphs, and
photographs. The preliminary competition
at the school level consists of seven rounds of 35 questions each. Each student will be asked one question per
round. A student has 15 seconds to
answer each question. A student can ask
to have a question repeater or a word spelled.
The time will stop while the examiner answers the student’s question. A student may only interrupt each level of
the school competition twice to have either a question repeated or a word
spelled. Once the question has been
repeated or the word spelled, the student should be allowed the remainder of
the 15 seconds to answer the question.
Only the first answer given will be accepted and judged. A student may pass if he or she does not know
the answer and wishes to pass before time is up. Passes count as incorrect answers.
The preliminary rounds of the Bee will take place on Monday,
January 6th and Tuesday, January 7th during social
studies classes. All students will
participate in the preliminary rounds. As
many as three students from each social studies class will be invited to
participate in an elimination Bee after school on Thursday, January 9th.
Contact Mr. Young in room 129 at 781-925-2040
ext 2129 or by email at tyoung@town.hull.ma.us
should you have any questions.
