2016-02-25

【Aiden in English】

        When someone calls you a nerd, it can be taken two ways. A) It means you stick your head in a book every hour of every day, or B) you’re smarter than the guy calling you a nerd. It’s no bad to be a nerd, although it must just trash your social life. There’s really nothing you can do if you’re selected to represent Pennbrook MS in the Upper Bux-Mont. Academic Challenge/Competition based on the teacher’s recommendation. Apparently, Pennbrook always gives students a choice, but the pressure put on the selected few across the 7^th and 8^th grades is extremely immense, like peer pressure. Besides, according to mom, this could somehow, in another universe, contribute to me entering Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, or Montgomery County Community College.

        Well, I can’t deny having learned something. Now I know that the thread-like vegetative part of fungus is called hyphae which make up mycelium, and that the founder of the first US bank was Alexander Hamilton. Okay, I knew something, but they didn’t always come to mind. For example, what is the wind that forms a thirty degree angle with the equator? The answer is trade winds. Apparently, I was supposed to know it because I did experience the trade winds myself in Aruba when I was six years old. Why do these questions ever help me achieve my life goal? I have no idea. All I know is that I can piss off a lot of my friends with my amazing geography textbook in my brain. The competition took place at Pennfield, one of the three middle schools of North Penn School District. There are three qualifying rounds, in which you face off with another team in Jeopardy, where there are six categories, each with a 50, 40, 30, 20, and 10 point question. The categories contain Spelling, Geography, History, Math, Science, and Language Arts. Unlike Jeopardy, there is no deduction of points to a wrong answer, but the opponent can steal. The top eight teams with the most cumulative points with face off in a tournament style bracket, seeds 1 and 8, 2 and 7, etc. The winner wins absolutely nothing except a mental certificate for you to go out into the world and torture it with your profound knowledge of the cool/useless things. There would be a bunch of people I bet waiting for you to explain the properties of a hypercube. I wasn’t really a crazy guy for this kind of thing, but it should be cool. At the time, I had no idea that the night was about to get exciting.

        After the first two qualifying rounds, my confidence was shaky. I mean, on average, it takes around 1050 points to get into the final eight. With only 640 points after the 2^nd round, it was getting a little too close to, not mine, but mom’s comfort. It’s alright, though we totally didn’t blowout the final team by stealing most of their questions, and gaining, wait, let me do the math…… 60% of the questions, which by the way, was A LOT. The only thing I was good at was math and geography, since geography was basically asking you things on a map, such as the key of scale. It put us with 1180, well above the average marker. So we ate our dinner in happiness.

        A thing I sort of left out was the fact that Pennbrook sent four teams. I was on Team B. Teams C and D didn’t reach the average thousand marks, falling in the 900’s. But Team A had 1190 points, which scared me. Although many didn’t seem to realize it, the points were only apart by ten, and that’s dangerously close. If the two Pennbrook teams face off in the first round, that would suck. Hey, as if someone finally decided to give me a birthday present, here it came from the announcer. And last but not least, Pennbrook A, the number four seed, versus Pennbrook B, the number five seed. Great. Awesome. Amazing, Stunning.

        Ummmmm……? There was an awkward silence in the room of the Pennbrook Quarter Final Showdown. Although everyone’s aiming for number 1, I’m pretty sure some people here just wanted to prove who the king of Pennbrook is. In practice, we’ve blown them out of the water before. I think they still remember that. The game was a back and forth battle, and it was decided in the small point values in the end. Team B, we, controlled the big guns, hauling in three 50’s, taking a fifty point lead. The forty’s treated us poorly, allowing Team A to close the gap. So far throughout the competition, the strategy for us has been Math first, since there were two MathCounts members on the squad, and then Science if Math was taken. Our star kind of knew everything, especially science, and it sort of worked. Now it seemed like playing our mirror image, as they had the same game plan. What’s really funny was how neither team could really spell. So far on the day, we had yet to choose a Spelling question. This game was won in the Spelling category, as they answered most of the Math questions with ease. The two strengths of our team were put out of commission for that round, and so with other skills, we kept up with every correct answer on the other team, keeping the lead for literally the entire game. I can give Team A credit on coming close, though. At one time they were within twenty, but the amount of points was just too little, and the gap couldn’t be closed.

        Well, we lost the next round, which we should’ve won. But I was proud on how we did. I’m not even a nerd, and look at the progress. Going past the quarterfinals was enough, as my brain had stopped sending electrical impulses after the third mention of the founding father Alexander Hamilton. So I guess I’m coming back next year, right?

【红霞译文】

        假如你被冠以书呆子称号，那么可以从两个方面诠释其含义：第一，你整天无时无刻都在看书；第二，你比叫你书呆子的人聪明。身为书呆子没啥不好，尽管有损于你公众形象，但假如老师推荐你代表宾溪中学参加巴克斯与蒙哥马利两郡北部学区百科知识竞赛，你根本无法左右社会舆论。当然校方一向尊重学生个人“选择”，对于少数入选并同意参赛的初中二、三年级学生来说，同辈压力心理负荷都相当可观。另外根据妈妈的思维逻辑，百科知识竞赛可以激励我展望哈佛、麻省理工、斯坦福、牛津大学乃至蒙哥马利社区学院未来之路。

        该项竞赛是检验我知识面的试金石，现在我知道一些以前不知道的东西，譬如真菌中线状营养结构被称作菌丝，而菌丝体恰恰由这些菌丝组成；亚历山大·汉密尔顿是第一家美国银行的创始人。同时还包括一些即使知道也答不上来的东西，举例来说，与赤道构成卅度角的风叫什么？六岁时我曾去过加勒比海岛国阿鲁巴，那里可是东北信风盛行的地方。了解这些背景知识究竟对我来来人生道路有何影响？我如坠五里雾之中，不过有一点我十分清楚，正因为自己熟知地理教科书本，我才能从众多同伴中绽露头角。竞赛设在北宾州学区三所中学之一“宾田”举行，前后共分三轮，采用益智问答游戏《危险边缘》的形式，两支校队针对六门学科进行较量，每道问题各按50分、40分、30分、20分和10分不等来计算成绩，内容涉及拼写、地理、历史、数学、科学以及语言艺术等六个领域。与《危险边缘》不同的是，答题一方答对了得分，答错了不扣分，但对方可以“偷”答你答错的题目，若答案正确，对方意外得分。积分最高的前八名再进行淘汰赛，第一名迎战第八名，第二名出击第七名，以此类推。冠军队除了赢取一张荣誉证书之外没有其它任何奖励，即便如此，参赛者个个使出浑身解数，恨不能把脑袋瓜里看似了不起、实际毫无用处的渊博知识全部挖掘出来，我敢打赌恐怕有不少人指望听你娓娓道来如此高精尖的超方形属性呐。我压根就不是这种满腹经纶的才子佳人，要是真沾亲带故该有多酷。不管怎样，我万万想不到今晚的比赛竟然高潮迭起甚至达到白热化程度。

        前两轮资格赛下来，我逐渐丧失信心。单就平均分数线而言，欲想进入八强，你手中起码要有1050分左右在握，而两轮角逐之后我们仅得了640分，其实我倒满不在乎，可妈妈却不以为然。好在还有机会，尽管我们未能给最后一轮对手剃个光头，但连“偷”带“抢”豪取不少分，让我来计算一下……回答了60%的问题，说起来真够过瘾。我的强项集中表现在数学和地理方面，因为地理基本上仅限于地图常识，譬如比例尺。我们以1180总分反倒超出平均分数线。三轮预赛结束，我们总算可以开开心心地吃顿晚饭。

        有一件事我前面只字没提，那就是宾溪中学总共派来了四支队伍，我代表B队；C队和D队各得九百多分，未能达到一千分平均标准,而A队在资格赛上一举拿下1190分，害得我紧张半天。也许很多队友没有意识到，A队与B队之间只相差10分，彼此可谓势均力敌。倘若宾溪中学两支队伍在初赛中相遇，结局惨不忍睹。嘿，好像有人终于决定送我一件生日礼物，这时播音员开始公布成绩，最后但同样重要地，排名第四位的宾溪A队将与排名第五位的宾溪B队对垒，多牛嘞，真棒呀，酷毙啦，惊喜哈。

        嗯……？在八强赛教室里，宾溪两队的队员尴尬地坐在一起互不搭腔，谁都想争第一，没准儿有人巴不得做上宾溪头把交椅。平常练习的时候，我们B队曾给他们A队来过下马威，想必对方记忆犹新，但这回彼此比分交替上升，直到最后才以微弱差异决出胜负。我们B队掌控大局，一气夺得三个50分，在50分赛项上领先，可在40分赛项上却出师不利，结果A队步步紧逼，把比分拉得很近。到这里为止，我们采用的战术之一就是先向数学开战，因为本队有两名队员是学校参加初中数学竞赛的选手。之二，实在不行再盯住科学不放，队里有位明星如同万金油一般无事不晓，尤其在科学方面表现出色。好笑的是，两队风格雷同，实战手段也非常相像，双方的拼写水平向来很弱，大家不得不尽量避免触及拼写软肋，但无论对手多有本事横扫数学问题，最终我们还是以拼写胜出。比赛中，我们两科优势一点没有发挥出来，因此只好利用其它优势，争取把对方答错的题目一一答对，以便确保自己始终处于领先地位。我必须承认A队相当优秀，否则不会跟B队难分伯仲，一度间，他们把比分追成不足廿分之差，可惜题目份量太小，无法迎头赶超我们。

        接下来我们输掉不该输的半决赛，不过我为本队表现深感自豪。我不是什么书呆子，在这项活动中可以说收获连连，作为一位连开国元勋亚历山大·汉密尔顿都说不清道不明的参赛者，能够闯入四强已然叫我无比欣慰，想必后会有期，明年再来？