世界地球日，2014-04-22

【Aiden in English】

        74 years ago, Reading Olympics started on an idea to make reading fun in the school districts of Montgomery County, PA. Well, congratulations! You failed. Now I can't read the books I like, have to wake up early on every Tuesday and discuss with my teammates at school for 4 months.

        There are 40 children books required for all voluntary participants to read. They were randomly selected by the Committee of teachers and librarians based upon Newbery Medal Awards, Best Illustrations, the most popular sequels, and Best Selling over the years. So there was no bloody, violence or adult language and other than that, the books varied greatly. Overall, the books were okay, but one significantly stood out, Artemis Fowl. It was one of the most hilarious, addicting, suspending books ever! Even though I didn't have a reason, I liked it so much.

        Reading Olympics isn't as cool as it sounds. Reading, reading, reading, and guess what, more reading. The only time it isn't reading is at the competition, which is intense. This year, three teams represent my school out for competing in the intermediate level. Each team consists of about 12 kids from 5th-6th grades who volunteer to take part in the events. Our team met once a week before the school started in the morning and discussed the books we read. Each person read at least 6 books and so everyone knew an answer for the competition. All questions were based on a list of 40 books.

        One team will meet another team from the different school in the competition. However, Reading Olympics isn't about competition against each other but the team work. It relies on your reading skills and also a bit of luck. Why? Well, in Reading Olympics, each team is asked for 20 questions in every round. If a team answers a question wrong, then the other team can get a chance to steal. So if you faced a good team, you'd better secure your points. The highest prize of Blue Ribbon requires 50 points and each question costs one point. Since there are only 20 points per round and three rounds in total, each round needs to have at least 17 points.

        And from the beginning, those 17 points seemed so far away. My team of Awesome Fluffy Unicorn came against the Yellow from Abington SD. They had two mistakes, but also four steals. We had five mistakes. Not the best way to start the games. Next, we continued to lose, ending up with 16 points. Two rounds gave us only 31 points and for the last round, we wanted a whopping 19 points!

        So here I was walking into the room and the first question was asked. The other team in Green with all girls answered it incorrectly and bam! We had our first steal of the round. Maybe the Green team wasn't as good as the Yellow. It turned out that they performed even worse than expected and ended with 11, while we topped 50 by one point. No matter what, everyone should re-read the book, 'cause the more you read and the clearer you have on your mind. I think that Reading Olympics isn't a bummer after all.

【红霞译文】

        七十四年前，阅读奥林匹克赛就开始在宾州蒙哥马利郡各学区举行，目的在于激励学生的阅读兴趣。好吧，恭喜你，其效果适得其反！现在我既不能读自己喜欢的书，还得每星期二早起赶到学校与队友一道讨论读书心得，前后持续长达四个月之久。

        总计40本的少儿推荐图书都是由教师和图书馆员组成的评委会根据以往“纽伯瑞童书奖”、“最佳少儿插图”、“最流行的少儿小说系列”、“最畅销少儿书”等作品随意选定的，作为自愿参赛者必读材料，完全摈除血腥屠杀、暴力冲突、污秽语言之类的东西。这些书籍总体上来说题材广泛，内容繁多，其中《阿特米斯奇幻历险》集幽默、诱惑、悬念之大成，不知为什么，我特别喜欢这本书。

        实际上，阅读奥林匹克赛并非像其名声听起来那么好听，除了阅读、阅读、阅读之外，还是阅读。一旦到了不需阅读的时候，便意味着比赛在即，气氛顿时变得紧张起来。今年本校共有三支队伍参加中级年龄水平的阅读奥林匹克比赛，每队均由五~六年级、大约12位学生组成。一般情况下，我们每星期早晨学校开课前照面一次，着重讨论所读内容。每人被分摊阅读至少6本书，这样才可以做到有问必答，竞赛题目全部出自40本书。

        每支参赛团队都要面对来自不同学校的竞争队手，虽说阅读奥林匹克赛比得不是个人输赢，而是集体合作，但每队成绩好坏取决于阅读技巧和比赛运气。为什么这样说呢？就是因为阅读奥林匹克赛上，各个队每一轮都需要回答20道题，如果答错了一题，对方便有机会回答这个问题，答对加分，答错不扣分。所以倘若遇到一个强队，你必须尽量确保必答部分准确无误，否则无意之中给对手创造得分机会。阅读奥林匹克赛蓝丝带最高头奖需要50分，每轮20题，每题一分，共有三轮比赛，这么一来，每轮比赛应拿下至少17分。

        从比赛一开始，这17分好像遥不可及，我们“帅男靓女毛毛绒绒独角兽”队首轮与阿宾顿学区黄队交锋，尽管他们错失2分，但大大方方从我们这里“偷”去4分；我们首场答错五题，出师极为不利。接下来，我们又以16分的成绩败北。两轮下来，我们可怜巴巴仅得31分；最后一轮里，我们必须拼命争回19分！

        等我走进最后一轮比赛教室，双方对决即刻拉开序幕。对方绿队为清一色女生，第一道题便出现失误，千载难逢的机会到了！我们头回“偷”分成功。也许绿队不及早先的黄队实力殷实，反正她们临场表现不佳，最后一轮只得11分；而我们连“偷”带抢，一下子赢得总成绩51分。回过头来看，欲想赢得比赛，平常大家最好多读一遍看过的书籍，因为温故才能加深印象。由此说来，我觉得阅读奥林匹克赛还是挺有意思的。