MENSA Man almost Makes Fifth Grader History

MENSA Man almost Makes Fifth Grader History by Roxanne McDonald

Jason Ramsey makes it all the way to the million-dollar question before conceding he may be a MENSA member, but he is not smarter than a fifth grader.

Bring on one Berklee College honors graduate with an IQ of 143; introduce him to the new class composed of Cody; Mackenzie, Nathan, Olivia, and Sierra; add three but see no more than one cheat used; and you have one of the only a few contestants to make it as far as the million-dollar

question on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?”
Here are the questions Jason answered with apparent ease though with a feigned fear and trembling—born of the guy’s sweet humility, I imagine– that was adorable to watch:

FIRST GRADE MUSIC
1. What is the fifth word in the lyrics of “The Star-spangled Banner”?
a) light b) see c) red

FIRST GRADE GRAMMAR
2. How many singular nouns are in the following sentence? ‘The girls were mad at the boys because the boys threw snowballs at them.’

SECOND GRADE U.S. GEOGRAPHY
3. Yosemite National Park is located in what U.S. state?

THIRD GRADE ASTRONOMY
4. True or false? The Milky Way Galaxy contains more than one billion stars.

SECOND GRADE ANIMAL SCIENCE (CLASSROOM CLUB QUESTION from MCKENNA, ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL)
5. True or false? The Humpback Whale is cold-blooded.

THIRD GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES
6. The U.S. Declaration of Independence was written and signed in what year?

FOURTH GRADE U.S. HISTORY
7. U.S. president Hayes was elected into office in 1876. What was his first name?

FIFTH GRADE SCIENCE
8. What precious metal has the symbol ‘AG’ on the Periodic Table of the Elements?

FOURTH GRADE WORLD GEOGRAPHY
9. What is the capital of Brazil?

FIFTH GRADE DRAMA
10. “Two households both alike in dignity…” is the opening line to what Shakespeare play?

FIFTH GRADE WORLD GEOGRAPHY (FINAL QUESTION)
Jason drops out of school, and I forget the question he guessed at—an answer which would have been wrong, anyway! Yikes.

1. b) see [Jason is right.]

2. zero [Jason is right. So is Olivia.]
3. California [Jason is right. So is Nathan.]
4. True [Jason is right.]
5. False [Jason is right. So is Sierra.]
6. 1776 [Jason is right. Sierra says 1777.]
7. Rutherford [Jason is right. So is Cody.]
8. silver [Jason is right.]
9. Brasilia [Jason peeks at Mackenzie’s paper. Mackenzie is right.]
10. Romeo and Juliet [Jason is right. Mackenzie says Midsummer Night’s Dream; self-proclaimed “drama queen” Sierra, however, says Romeo and Juliet also.]

Maybe it doesn’t take a MENSA member to nail the questions, but then again, maybe it takes one to know when to walk away…, with $500,000.

SirLinksAlot Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader links

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