I'm weeping for the future. Have you seen this game show?

Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?

These are adults answering primary school questions for money. AND THEY HAVE TROUBLE. Is life so damn busy that logical thought breaks down? Was the educational system in the past so bad?

Here's a couple of the questions:

"What continent is the Panda a native of?"

"How many months have 31 days?"

WHAT leads us to this INANE show? I'm not getting it.

The contestant walked with $300,000 because she wasn't sure of her answer to the $500,000 question. "What country is also a continent?" :shk:

Do the powers that be want us to be that stupid? Grade school kids get these questions.

I hear you Intrepid. While the contestants fumble uncomfortably with overly simple questions, I can't help but feel your concern for the future. Some of these people are only 20 years my junior, most likley college or university educated, and they manage to f*** up the answers on national TV.

Whether these actions are planned for ratings or not, these pinheads are going to be responsible for looking after me in my retirement. What a sad reflection on our society that is.

Good points Intrepid!

I ask myself these questions from time to time when I flick on the tube:

* Are people under that much stress on a tv show, that they 'forget' simple answers?

* Are 50 to 100% of these gameshows rigged for ratings?

* Are children being taught a helluvalot more these days in the education system than what we learned long ago?

* Are people being picked because of their mediochre to 'duhhh' intelligence so that the 5th graders can outshine them?

Man oh man...the beat goes on.

I see what you mean. How many times have I wished for someone to invent 'real' interactive tv, so that I could put my arm through the screen and throttle someone just for the hell of it.

supposedly we forget the basics as we age, or the show tries to make it seem. I personally think they just select "below average" contestants.

My kids love that show btw, so at least I can say the show is empowering to children especially 5th graders.

It's not really fair, they should be asking the adults questions about the Paris Hilton case, or basic TV trivia questions.

Game show contestants are screened by a panel of specialists to provide the competition with the most "interesting", "humorous" and "entertaining" canidates possible.

In other words, you're seeing a scripted thematic scenario with improvisation on the parts of the unwitting contestants.

I loathe this show. It's embarrassing -- do none of the contestants have any memory of anything they learned in school? Do none of them read anything more than Cosmo? I guess Jeopardy is too hard for most average folk now.

That there moving picture Idiocracy don't look so far-fetched now, do it Cletus?

Originally posted by intrepid
Grade school kids get these questions.

Maybe the point is that on average they don't.

I was discussing the Libby issue over the 4th with some people, and many actually had no idea who I was talking about!

Then this morning I read this:

"Bob Barker! It's Bob Barker!" two women shrieked upon seeing the former president, Bill Clinton.

It's very depressing.

I don't know if it has always been this way...or if this is something new.

:shk:



[edit on 5-7-2007 by loam]

Ever seen those "on the street" interviews on Leno? Of course, they're only going to show the ones with the highest entertainment/humor value (read: dumbest people) but it's scary to think there really are relatively normal looking people out there who are that dumb. Slack-jawed, drooling, staring-at-the-sun dumb.

And some of them vote.

I don't know why everyone is all shocked, and offended. If anything this just proves how useless grade k-12 is, and how little you use anything you learn there in the real world. This is excactly why i slept through most of school.

Grade school is about memorizing obscure facts. I mean what countries do pandas come from? Why should i know or care? How many months have 31 days? That's just obscure facts. This is in no way a reflection of how "dumb" the adults are, or how "poor" our education system is (although it is admitedly quite crappy). This is why kids hate school because the ONLY things you will EVER learn are: Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division..and basic english.

You don't really start learning usefull stuff till college..and even when you get to college there is a lot of useless crap you have to learn there. I mean seriously who cares about shakespere he's be dead for what like 400 years? Everyone loves or at least likes their major..but seriously all those other useless courses like english and sociology are still useless, even in college. Trade schools are the way to go. Learn a good trade, and cut out all that excess book studying junk.

90% of the stuff learned through highschool is useless though. If you can comprehend english, and know how to use a claculator..you're fine. Tell me how many times have you honestly had to do linear algeabra in the real world? there's no reason adults should remeber obscure facts from outdated text books from 40 years ago.

Why don't we ask these kids to do some hardcore calculus? Or even ask them to analize why they think stem cell research could help parkisans disease. Then we'll see how smart those little heffers are.

Originally posted by intrepid


Here's a couple of the questions:

"What continent is the Panda a native of?"

"How many months have 31 days?"

let me take a stab at the answers...

Panda - Eur-Asia continent....not China or Asia

months - None, unless your referring to calander Months,
The term Month including all financial Months are 4 weeks=28 days long



??are these trick questions
i've never seen the show, but it's expressly for entertainment right?
?, the show should be airing on Sunday AM, as a naturally appropriate timeslot


[edit on 6-7-2007 by St Udio]

I'm calling all of you out.

I've only watched that show once and...dammit...I don't think I got a single answer right.

FIFTH GRADE MY ASS!!!

Now I consider myself to be a pretty well educated individual (some of you who have argued with me on these boards may disagree)...but the point is I SWEAR I was getting questions like "What is the average rainfall in Zaire?" and "What year did the Akkadians reclaim Hadid from King Hammurabai?" and stuff.

Let me repeat:

FIFTH GRADE MY ASS!!!

(For the record, I am able to answer the Jay Leno questions and hold a coherent conversation on the Scooter Libby situation.)

They have definately changed education, like the threadstarter says. we are just meant to be consumers, and forget about thinking in a way they do not like.

people years ago were taught to retain information, today kids have short attention spans to make that difficult.

Originally posted by St Udio


let me take a stab at the answers...

Panda - Eur-Asia continent....not China or Asia

months - None, unless your referring to calander Months,
The term Month including all financial Months are 4 weeks=28 days long

Wow bravo you know obscure facts that have absolutley no use in the real world. But the question is why does the average person need to know that? Or who really cares? I mean yes great for you that you know stuff like that,and i'm not saying you shouldn't be proud that you do... but honestly what would an intellegent person, even like a computer programmer need to know some obscure facts like that for?

Knowing obscure facts doesn't make anyone smart. Being smart is knowing danger when you see it. Knowing that it's not a good idea to walk around late at night with hundreds of dollars on you..that's real smarts. Or knowing how to do serious triganometry. Thats real smarts. Like i said the majority of stuff you learn in school, minus the basics (math, reading, writing) is useless.

Anybody can memorize obsucre textbook facts (which is all grade k-12 is) but like i said..even very intellegent people won't use facts such as the origin continent of pandas in the real world. It's great for bar trivia, and to impress your friends. But that isn't really knowledge that "Does" anything, feel me?

Oh and as for the months..your wrong becuase the current month has 31 days. I mean why WOULDN'T we assume it's calender months? Anything else is just psuedoscience that all grammer school kids hate.

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Do none of them read anything more than Cosmo? I guess Jeopardy is too hard for most average folk now.

People don't read anymore, period. That is a big contributor to the ignorance that we see almost daily in this world.

I did the test, and I had to cheat on one bit.
"What unit of measurement does a fathom stand for" (Or something along those lines).

Of course me, neither being english nor american, never heard of a ''fathom'' other than the definition "to comprehend" (I cannot fathom the reason for his assassination).

However I have to agree, though people might think it is important to remember history, I think it is more important to learn how to survive in thi world, or at least get taught RELEVANT information.

The only actual possibly useful question I had was "What does Au stand for in the Periodic Element Table" (or w/e it's called in english)
Gold.

Well if you're going to do scientific stuff you'll have to know that.

But to say that one is smarter than a 5th grader or not based on knowledge, is foolish.

I'd rather think I'm smarter than a 5th grader when I succeed in solving difficult puzzles without knowledge beforehand (The ability to interpret stuff accordingly, rather than to remember certain little facts).

Please tell me, how are you SMART if you can use something you get taught in a certain situation?

Because you know that 123 + 124 + 125 = 372, you're smart?

:/

Imo Being smart is more about improvisation and (possibly) innovation rather than knowledge.

[edit on 6/7/07 by -0mega-]

Originally posted by -0mega-

Because you know that 121 + 124 + 125 = 372, you're smart?

uhh... no?

^^^
Now that's comedy!!
.

Yah, typo on that one.

Was trying to remember which numbers they used, so I edited the equation (I already put one down as an example, but then I thought of the quiz one) which messed up the answer .


[edit on 6/7/07 by -0mega-]

I believe they just cast people of low intelligence. It is a TV show, and that is the whole premise of the show, to make 5th graders look smarter than adults. It doesn't mean society is becoming dumberas a whole, as these kids are showing us that they know these answers. Take some smart kids, find some dumb adults, boom you got great television. Not much of a conspiracy there IMO.

Maybe you've heard of that show where people try to sing songs without forgeting the lyrics. They wouldn't cast people with a vast knowledge of music, because that wouldn't make good TV. Same principal on the 5th grader show, if they casted smart people then they would lose a lot more money and the show would be pointless IMO.