Kirklann Lau doesn't know if he has a good memory or just studies well.

The eighth-grader from Sequoia Middle School in Newbury Park said he only knows that he had a goal from last year to do a good job in his school's geography bee, which led him to study hard.

The results of his efforts left Kirklann, 13, with a second-place finish last month at the state finals of the 2008 Geographic Bee in Sacramento.

"We were just very, very excited, because it was such a great accomplishment," said Sequoia Principal Vivian Vina. "Just the local geography bee on campus, some of those questions are really very hard."

The bee is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and is open to fourth- through eighth-graders throughout the country.

Kirklann finished one correct answer shy of going to the national bee, to be held May 21 in Washington, D.C.

To prepare for the bee, Kirklann said he read about geography every day.

"I had this geography book and it had the facts about almost every country, and it had 1,001 questions in the back," Kirklann said.

"I'd just read that every day. Also, every day I'd go online and take the geography bee challenge that National Geographic puts up there. And I'd just go on Wikipedia."

To qualify for the state competition, Kirklann had to win his school's geography bee and then take a written test. Only the top 100 scorers were selected.

The test was hard but not as stressful as going on stage and competing in front of a crowd of about 400 people in Sacramento, he said.

To finish second at the state event, Kirklann had to survive a preliminary round with eight questions. From there, 31 students vied to be one of 10 finalists.

In the end, Kirklann ended up in an 18-question, tie-breaking round with the eventual winner of the competition, Nikhil Desai of Challenger School in Newark.

The winning question was: "Energy-rich Balochistan located on the border of Iran is home to an insurgency movement demanding greater autonomy from which nation?" The answer was Pakistan.

"I missed going to the nationals by one question," he said. Still, he was proud of his accomplishment.

Carol Krupansky, Kirklann's social studies teacher, said he worked hard to earn his second place.

"Kirklann's a very dedicated child," Krupansky said.

"He spent his summer reading social studies books and studying. This was a very big deal to him."

Jake Finch's e-mail address is alljake@hotmail.com.