Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
Fox’s new show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader is not only entertaining, but also educating. That is, 5th graders educating college graduates and adults. This game show challenges many educated adults to answer elementary school level questions (covering math, geography, politics, etc.) to possibly win $1 million!Â
 Take the quiz. See whether you are smarter than a fifth grader.
1. If you have a gross of pencils, how many pencils do you have?
2. True or False: “Carefully,” “easily,” and “barely” are examples of adjectives.Â
3. What is the largest South American country by area?
4. The cerebrum is the biggest part of what organ in your body?
5. The Inca empire was concentrated on which continent?
6. Which is longer, one kilometer or one mile?
7. A heptagon is a shape with how many sides?
8. Emma has two yard sticks. She also has a 12-inch ruler. She laid them end-to-end in a line. How many feet long is the line?
9. Of a drum, violin, or saxophone, which is a woodwind instrument?
10. True or False: The ostrich is the fastest bird on foot.
answers:
1. 144 pencils
2. False (adverbs)
3. Brazil
4. Brain
5. South America
6. One mile
7. Seven
8. 7 feet
9. Saxophone
10. True
Thinking about graduate school? Well, before even beginning the dreaded application process, one must go through the graduate admissions test. Two common exams are the GRE and GMAT.  These exams contain similar test content to that of SATs. However, there is one main difference - graduate exams are computer adaptive. Huh? Basically, this means that the test is taken on a computer screen. That’s right, no paper pencil test. This, however, does have its cons. For instance, because it is a computer adaptive test, the computer adjusts the difficulty level based on whether one correctly or incorrectly answers the previous question.  Hence, the more incorrect answers one enters, the lower the level of difficulty becomes, subsequently leading to a lower overall test score.  Because of this, it is crucial that the first 10-15 questions are mostly, if not all, answered correctly. This will inform the computer that the test taker knows his/her stuff, bumping the level and score of the exam higher and higher.  On the contrary, if one consistently misses the first 10-15 questions, the computer will place the test taker at easy level. And even if the same test taker gets the rest of the questions correct, he/she will not be able to achieve as high of a score as the test taker who gets the first 10-15 all correctly and incorrectly answers some of the latter questions. 