NG Bee contest: Indian boy bags 2nd place

Washington, May 21: Arjun Kandaswamy, a 14-year-old boy of Indian origin in Oregon, has won second place in the annual National Geographic Bee geography contest, and bagged a 15,000-dollar college scholarship.

He is an eighth grader at Meadow Park Middle School in Beaverton.

Seventh grader Eric Yang, 13, of Griffin Middle School in The Colony, Texas, won the toughest National Geographic Bee to date during a tie-breaker round.

Third place and a 10,000-dollar college scholarship went to North Carolina's Shantan Krovvidi, 13, a seventh grader at Ligon Middle School in Raleigh.

The Google-sponsored event was held at National Geographic Society headquarters this week in Washington, D.C.

Bee director Mary Lee Elden revealed that the finalists prepared more vigorously than in previous years, prompting organizers to make the questions more difficult for the national finals.

Yang said that this year's questions were "challenging", but he didn't change his strategy.

"I just built on what I already knew," National Geographic News quoted him as saying.

His father William Yang was "very excited" about his victory.

He described Eric as a "very independent boy".

"We try to provide all the support we can, but most of the time he spends his time by himself," William said.

The teen enjoys history books, cookbooks, and travel guides.

ANI