Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

This week's contestant is a school teacher. I hope she does better than the other teachers I've seen on the show. (I'm watching it as I write this.)

First mistake: Before getting to the first question, she proclaims she will not be admitting she's not smarter than a fifth grader--a requirement of not going all the way in the test and winning the $1 million grand prize. Something, incidentally, that no one to date has accomplished.

She's got up to $25 thousand answering such challenging questions as:

Spell "elephant".
and
What continent has the coldest annual average temperature?

The following question was more than she could handle...

What is the name of the river that forms the border between the state of Texas and Mexico?

She answered "Colorado River". She was saved by her "classmate".

Now, I'm just a stupid Canadian, but I didn't need the visual aid of the map to know it's the Rio Grande.

She didn't even attempt to answer the next question, opting to use her "cheat" and taking her classmate's answer--which was correct. In fact, all the students had the correct answer.

The next question was interesting:

In Fahrenheit, how hot is the surface of the sun?
a) 10,000 degrees
b) 35,000 degrees
c) 35 million degrees

Thinking out loud, she says to herself "The sun's really, really hot, so I'm going to say the hottest answer." Then, she thought better of it and decided she really didn't have a clue and "dropped out". Her fifth grade "classmate" had the right answer: 10,000 degrees. Definitely not smarter than a fifth grader.

The next contestant was a real door knob. His 'mates got him to $50,000, despite him asserting he knew answers that he did not. He did, however, admit that he didn't have the foggiest idea what a contraction in grammar was when presented with a grade one question and was again saved by a "classmate".

After seeing the $100,000 question, he confidently said "I know the answer. It's a Spanish dude and I'm going to lock in "Christopher Columbus". First of all, Columbus was Italian. Secondly, the question was about the explorer responsible for circumnavigating the globe in the 16th century. Thirdly, Columbus sailed in the 15th century--1492 to be exact. He dropped down to $25,000. His "classmate" had the right answer. Definitely not smarter than a fifth grader.

The preview for next week's program showed yet another guy who says he will be the first to win the million. I can't wait.

The compelling thing about this show is not how stupid people are--we see/hear/read about stupid people all the time. What does it for me is that they are completely oblivious to how stupid they are.