Thursday, July 24, 2008

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

I haven't watched this show since the last time I posted about it. After watching part of it again tonight, I realize that this is a show I need to stay away from, as it only makes me depressed to realize how stupid people are.

The first question I saw was "What is the minimum number of letters required to make a word in the English language?" The guy did thankfully get it right, but only after peeking at the answer of the fifth grader beside him, which is I guess some kind of lifeline in this show. Jeff Foxworthy did make fun of him a little for it, but not nearly enough, as far as I'm concerned. He then counted on his fingers for a while before finally answering correctly how many days are in January, June and September combined, but at least he got it. Then came the question about which amount (in US currency) is greatest, half a trillion, 600 billion, or 999 million. This time he seemed pretty sure, and was reading through each one before giving his answer. He amazingly figured that half a trillion is 500 billion, so 600 billion is greater, then he sounded like he was about to say that obviously 999 was greater, when I guess he really noticed that million for the first time. Well, nothing wrong with that, he didn't read the question completely at first. But the sad part here was, he really seemed thrown by this revelation, and it took him time to recover before he thankfully did come up with the right answer. The next question was, "Which of the 50 state capitals lies at the greatest latitude?" The guy was pretty sure of himself this time and pretty quickly answered Maine. Now I don't know if the show is strict enough to tell him that Maine isn't the capital of anything, since it's obviously wrong for other reasons. But the thing that pissed me off here was that they guy got to continue because the little girl answered the question correctly. I stopped paying attention at that point, but looked up to see that he quit on the next question, though he could have continued if he would have taken the little girl's answer, which was correct.

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4 comments:

Chris Howard said...

"What is the minimum number of letters required to make a word in the English language?"

It's right there in the question!

I think you're right, though, it's probably a show you ought to avoid.

John Howard said...

It's right there in the question!

Yeah, that's pretty much what Jeff Foxworthy told him. Also, when he went through his reasoning for wanting to peek at the little kid's answer, he must have said "I" about four times.

michelline said...

It's kind of like that movie we just watched, Chris. Idiocracy?

nightshift66 said...

We live in the Idiocracy, folks. One reason the movie did so poorly is that too much of the intended audience is already too dim to grasp the concept.