Last year, Rice explained, his goal was just to make the finals. This year, he wanted to go to nationals. He's set the bar even further for himself. He has been homeschooled since kindergarten by his mother. That may make it easier for him to study, he said, since his mother has let him spend extra time on his geography and will make up other lessons after the competition.
Rice spends about an hour and a half each day studying geography.
He said he also does well because he likes geography so much. Name the capital city. Answers were the Andes Mountains and Caracas, Venezuela. Students qualified for the bee by receiving high scores on a test administered earlier this year. They made the finals by having high scores on a written geography test earlier Friday.