Books, Tips, and Worldwise Worldwide
By: Nicholas Jachowski

BOOKS:

• THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DESK REFERENCE--This is an invaluable book if you want to do well in the geo bee. Every earth science question that I can remember could be found in this book (including the one I missed in the Championship round at nationals). It's a big book, so read a little everyday, letting it sink in. And reading it more than once is also a good idea.
  
  
• LANDS AND PEOPLE by Grolier (the publisher)--This is a set of encyclopedias that is divided into 6 books by continent, and has a section about every country in the world. These books are great for learning all those cultural, historical, and political tidbits that you won't learn in atlases. You can find these at most libraries, or you can purchase them. These books are better read after you've gained a large geographical knowledge base.
  
  
• THE DK GEOGRAPHY OF THE WORLD--This book briefly discusses all the continents and countries. It has a lot of pictures and is easy to read. This is a good book if you want to learn a few major things about all the countries.
  
  
• OXFORD DICTIONARY OF THE WORLD--This book is "the essential guide to Countries, People, and Places" (that's what it says on the cover, and I agree). You can look up most geographical terms and places in this book.

ATLASES:
There are a lot of good atlases out there. Here are a few that I used:

• DK WORLD ATLAS MILLENNIUM EDITION
  
• NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF THE WORLD
  
• NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CONCISE ATLAS OF THE WORLD
  
• HAMMOND NEW CENTURY WORLD ATLAS
  
• HAMMOND CITATION WORLD ATLAS
  
• THE NYSTROM DESK ATLAS
  
• THE NYSTROM ATLAS OF THE WORLD

It doesn't really matter what/which atlas/atlases, but these were just some of the ones that I found useful.


TIPS:

Occasionally a few questions come out of recent National Geographic Magazines, so it never hurts to read those.

Also there are always a few questions on current events, so read the newspaper and go through the Year In Review section in the most recent The World Almanac.

When studying I found that a good way to study atlases and books was to start with the biggest and most important things (such as: capitals, longest etc.), then move into the more obscure things. There is so much to learn, that if you don't have some structure to your studying, then you will get nowhere.

Do what seems to work for you. Everyone at nationals and internationals studied there own unique way; I took notes in a spiral notebook, Kyle Haddad-Fonda (the national champion) typed all his notes and put them in binders, Steven Young (a fellow member of the 2001 US geography team) even used reverse osmosis. So all I can say about this is, experiment, and do what you like the best.

Kyle's tip is to "Study A LOT A LOT A LOT". That's true, if you want to do well, you'll have to study a lot, but make it fun. Learning geography can be really fun, it has definitely made the last 2 years of my life really fun, and it continues to do so even now.