Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?
I had heard just a little bit about this show but had never watched it. Then a few days ago, I caught just a brief little bit of it. When I had heard about it, I assumed it was the kind of obscure crap that you learn in fifth grade, but isn't important enough to remember, like the chief export of Brazil, or the capitals of Canadian provinces or something. However, during the time I watched, some obscenely stupid woman went from $150K in winnings up to $300K by answering how many months had 31 days. The saddest part about watching was her methods to get to that correct answer. She did the little rhyme to come up with 4 months with 30 days, then added on February to get to 5. Then she fucking counted on her fingers, saying "one from twelve is eleven, two from twelve is ten, three from twelve is nine, four from twelve is eight, five from twelve is seven." As sad as that is, at least she came up with the right answer.
Next, she had a chance to get a half a million dollars. If she missed the question, she would only get $25K. Or she could walk away with the $300K, but she had to say she wasn't as smart as a fifth grader or some bullshit. The question? "What continent is also a country?" I was prepared to forgive her for not immediately answering, thinking they had told her to string the drama out or something. But then she went back to her fingers. Why, I don't know. I guess she was counting the continents in her head for some reason. After some hemming and hawing, and chit chat with Jeff Foxworthy, who I can only assume was able to restrain himself from openly laughing at her only because he was getting paid for this, she decided to walk away. So, when Foxworthy asks what her answer would have been, I'm still hoping she will give the correct answer, and just is nervous on TV, and her head isn't clear enough to risk $275K for any reason. But then what she comes up with is "all of them." All of them. And some nonesense about how North America is a country, and the audience (thankfully) laughing at her. Then instead of looking suitably ashamed when given the correct answer, she instead seems to be giving herself credit for being smart enough to walk away.
I can only assume that either these two questions are not represenative of what is normally on this show, or that they make the contestants take some test to prove they are adequately stupid. Otherwise, this show would be giving away a million dollars everytime it airs. I wanted to stick around to the end to see how I could get on this show, but I had to go tell my wife about the stupidity I had just witnessed, and how it was rewarded with three hundred thousand dollars.
5 comments:
I guess Jeopardy was too snooty and intellectual for people? It's very sad. But when you start thinking about it, it's not surprising. People are stupid. Sure there are a lot of smart people out there, but for every smart one, there's probably 10 stupid ones.
Being stupid isn't necessarily a character flaw. Some people just aren't blessed, so-to-speak, with as much memory or processing power by nature. I'll take an unintelligent person with compassion any day over someone like say, Dick Cheney, who's smart but evil. The discouraging thing is the people who can and should know better. That's a lot of them, I think. And people take pride in their ignorance. Maybe it's just seld-defense, but it's disheartening.
Oh, you took of word verification. I hated that shit. Hopefully we won't get any spam.
And I didn't take it off. If you're logged in, you just don't have to do it, since you're a contributor.
Ah, that makes sense.
The continent/country question is nearly unbelievable. But I'll bet you, she couldn't name all 7 continents to begin with. Speaking of Australia, did you see the clip from that Australian spoof show where they asked a bunch of people on the street basic questions, like name a country that starts with a 'u', and people were drawing a blank? Pathetic.
That almost makes me ashamed to be the Prime Minister of Australia.
That almost makes me ashamed to be the Prime Minister of Australia. -
I thought you looked familiar. We took a picture with you at Madame Tussaud's. I'm sure I would have remembered who you were for sure if our camera hadn't of been stolen.
The things pressure will do to some people!
Matt
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