Can you name the largest desert in the world? Wareham Middle School fifth-grader Riley Gomes can.

Gomes gave the correct answer — the Sahara — in the final round at Monday morning’s Geography Bee at her school, beating out 23 students grades five through eight. By winning the bee, she won herself a chance to compete at Massachusetts' state competition held by National Geographic later this year.

The 24 students each won previously held geography contests in their respective social studies classes in order to compete. In Monday’s event, they were asked a series of questions involving United States and world geography, with students who answered the questions correctly remaining on stage.

The field was then narrowed down to Gomes and eighth grader Kevin England. England put up a good fight on his way to the finals, correctly naming Egypt as the country Mount Sinai stands in. But Gomes eventually came out on top.

“It was pretty exciting,” said sixth grade English Language Arts teacher Wendy Brogioli, who along with sixth and seventh grade math teacher Jessica Andrews supervised the contest. “Those were some very tough questions.”

Several students were successful with the questions regarding the United States, but world geography proved to be more difficult.  Questions like "Bicycles are the most common form of transportation in what most populous city on the east coast of China?" (Shanghai) and "What country known for its wine is home to the city of Bordeaux?" (France) and "What mountain range separates the continents of Europe and Asia?" (the Ural Mountains) stumped students.

“I don’t even know the answer to some of these,” Andrews said during the contest.

Gomes will have about a week to take a geography test required to qualify for the National Geographic contest.

She said she was confident coming into the bee.

“I’m very good at geography,” exclaimed Gomes.