Pity the student who was asked this question in last week's geography bee at Madison Middle School: "Women traditionally wear an abbaya, over modern clothes, in Manama, the cosmopolitan capital city of which country?"

Worse, the question was not even multiple-choice.

Twenty-five students from all three grades entered the seven-round preliminary competition at Madison Middle School. One hundred seventy-five questions later, 10 contestants, with five or more right answers each, emerged as finalists.

The National Geographic Society prescribes the sequence, format and objective of each stage. The final round is double elimination until only two contestants remain. It took only three questions to achieve that objective. Surprisingly, the question that spelled the beginning of the end for most was a made-in-the-USA current events test: "Name the large city that lies between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River."

One additional question then sealed the doom for the foundering field, and the championship pair was determined - eighth-grader Chris Gordon and sixth-grader Sean Keller. Keller had not missed a question all day.

At this point, some housekeeping (bee-keeping?) was necessary. Six contestants had just exited simultaneously, all tied for third. The bee requires a single third place, so it went into tie-breaker mode. One question did the trick, leaving sixth-grader Andy Snook as sole occupant of rung three.

The championship round was a battery of three questions, to which each contestant wrote his answers. Three-year bee veteran Gordon was eager to bring the championship back to the eighth grade after an absence of six years. Two-time Schmitz Park Elementary champion Keller was anxious simply to succeed in middle school.

The single battery of prescribed championship questions sufficed. The outcome was decisive - Keller had aced the entire bee. A gracious Gordon congratulated the winner. Keller confessed he was "pretty nervous."

"I didn't know how competitive I would be, since this was my first year [at Madison]."

Oh, yes. The answers to the questions are: Bahrain (in the Persian Gulf), and New Orleans (in Katrina-land).

This is the National Geographic Society's 19th annual edition of the National Geographic Bee. Keller will next take a proctored written exam that will be mailed to, and graded by, the Society. If his test score is among the top 100 in Washington, Keller will be invited to the state bee, traditionally held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.

The Schmitz Park Elementary and Alki Elementary geography bees, scheduled for the following day, were postponed because of school snow closure.