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.

【紅霞譯文】

        七十四年前，閱讀奧林匹克賽就開始在賓州蒙哥馬利郡各學區舉行，目的在於激勵學生的閱讀興趣。好吧，恭喜你，其效果適得其反！現在我既不能讀自己喜歡的書，還得每星期二早起趕到學校與隊友一道討論讀書心得，前後持續長達四個月之久。

        總計40本的少兒推薦圖書都是由教師和圖書館員組成的評委會根據以往“紐伯瑞童書獎”、“最佳少兒插圖”、“最流行的少兒小說系列”、“最暢銷少兒書”等作品隨意選定的，作為自願參賽者必讀材料，完全擯除血腥屠殺、暴力衝突、污穢語言之類的東西。這些書籍總體上來說題材廣泛，內容繁多，其中《阿特米斯奇幻歷險》集幽默、誘惑、懸念之大成，不知為什麼，我特別喜歡這本書。

        實際上，閱讀奧林匹克賽並非像其名聲聽起來那麼好聽，除了閱讀、閱讀、閱讀之外，還是閱讀。一旦到了不需閱讀的時候，便意味着比賽在即，氣氛頓時變得緊張起來。今年本校共有三支隊伍參加中級年齡水平的閱讀奧林匹克比賽，每隊均由五~六年級、大約12位學生組成。一般情況下，我們每星期早晨學校開課前照面一次，着重討論所讀內容。每人被分攤閱讀至少6本書，這樣才可以做到有問必答，競賽題目全部出自40本書。

        每支參賽團隊都要面對來自不同學校的競爭隊手，雖說閱讀奧林匹克賽比得不是個人輸贏，而是集體合作，但每隊成績好壞取決於閱讀技巧和比賽運氣。為什麼這樣說呢？就是因為閱讀奧林匹克賽上，各個隊每一輪都需要回答20道題，如果答錯了一題，對方便有機會回答這個問題，答對加分，答錯不扣分。所以倘若遇到一個強隊，你必須儘量確保必答部分準確無誤，否則無意之中給對手創造得分機會。閱讀奧林匹克賽藍絲帶最高頭獎需要50分，每輪20題，每題一分，共有三輪比賽，這麼一來，每輪比賽應拿下至少17分。

        從比賽一開始，這17分好像遙不可及，我們“帥男靚女毛毛絨絨獨角獸”隊首輪與阿賓頓學區黃隊交鋒，儘管他們錯失2分，但大大方方從我們這裡“偷”去4分；我們首場答錯五題，出師極為不利。接下來，我們又以16分的成績敗北。兩輪下來，我們可憐巴巴僅得31分；最後一輪里，我們必須拼命爭回19分！

        等我走進最後一輪比賽教室，雙方對決即刻拉開序幕。對方綠隊為清一色女生，第一道題便出現失誤，千載難逢的機會到了！我們頭回“偷”分成功。也許綠隊不及早先的黃隊實力殷實，反正她們臨場表現不佳，最後一輪只得11分；而我們連“偷”帶搶，一下子贏得總成績51分。回過頭來看，欲想贏得比賽，平常大家最好多讀一遍看過的書籍，因為溫故才能加深印象。由此說來，我覺得閱讀奧林匹克賽還是挺有意思的。