Student knows her way around the world

Name the South American capital city that lies just southeast of Lake Titicaca. You have 15 seconds. Time’s up. The correct answer is La Paz.

Miranda Lauria, a Columbia Falls eighth-grader, knew that answer and others as she won the annual geography bee at Columbia Falls Junior High School last week. Lauria beat out about 30 other students to win the annual honor at the school.

The geography questions were crafted by the National Geographic Society. It took several rounds to whittle the field down to Lauria and runner-up Paxton Fisher, as the two were tied heading into the final round.

The questions started out as fairly basic multiple choices centering on U.S. geography. As the bee continued, they took on a more worldly and difficult scope. Here’s a few sample questions from the final tiebreaker round:

1) The city of Majuro is the capital of what country in Micronesia?

2) The Shebele River rises in the mountains of Ethiopia and flows south into what country?

3) Three Gorges Dam, one of the largest hydroelectric power stations in the world, is located on what river that flows into the East China Sea?

Answers: 1) Marshall Islands, 2) Somalia, 3) Yangtze River.