Talk:Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old? (British game show)

Two pages?
There appears to be two pages for AYS UK. One is link to by the main AYS (US) article and seems just a stub entry(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Smarter_than_a_10_Year_Old%3F_%28United_Kingdom%29) and there this more complete entry
 * You can always fix it :) 82.69.90.226 (talk) 11:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Grades?
This article talks about 'first through fifth grades', which we don't have in the UK. I suspect it has been copy+pasted from the US version. Can someone who knows more about the show replace it with the UK specific terms?80.7.59.211 (talk) 23:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I must admit I didn't catch on to that - i've amended it to seem more British-oriented. Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Surnames
Someone appears to have twice added on children's surnames onto the entries. These surnames are entirely incorrect. The credits in the show do not show surnames. As a parent of one of the actual children in the show I DO KNOW the surnames and can confirm the ones added were simply made up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.234.21 (talk) 00:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Any images?
there should be some pictures, at least one!. (I'd have put some just that i dont know how)

Operator precedence on 16-Dec-07 episode
5 + 3 * 0 = 0? I guess the producers of the show havnt learnt about precedence of operators yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.107.203.86 (talk) 19:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Or maybe children wouldn't have learnt about it yet? Remember, it was "Age 6 Maths" - not "GCSE Maths"... -UK-Logician-2006 (talk) 20:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Having noticed this myself I actually wrote a short email querying the answer to Sky viewer relations who forwarded it to TwoFour Productions the producers of the show which resulted in the following response from the production coordinator at TwoFour Productions on December 20th 2007 (Quoted exactly as received however I have not included the individuals name):
 * Many thanks for your email regarding one of the questions on 'Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old?'


 * The question 'what is 5 + 3 x 0?' as taught to 6 year olds has the answer '0' as vertified by the teacher who set the question. If applying BODMAS rules however, an alternate answer would be '5'. But as BODMAS is not normally taught until a later age, the answer in this instance is 0.


 * I hope this clarifies any misunderstanding and we apologise for the ambiguity of the question in this instance. We will also be adding a caption to any repeats of the show explaining this.


 * Kind regards,


 * I guess however the fact they are going to caption any repeats of the show that they have had queries from other viewers as well, I highly doubt at least that they are going to add a caption explaining this solely on the basis of one viewer querying it, so perhaps it might be interesting to some readers if we put back that part of the article with the explanation maybe it will explain things for some other people as well, unless people find that a bad idea? MttJocy (talk) 17:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

How ridiculous! Surely, common sense dictates that you get taught what is right and logical at any age, and something like this should have been questioned as just 5x0 if that was the case, as 10yr olds who also answer the question may well be applying BODMAS to the query if they have been taught that themselves later on in schooling, yet it would then appear they don't know the answer. Surely, you can't teach one answer at one age, yet say the answer is actually completely different because you're a bit older? I think the "official" response has been glued together from comments that may have been flying around, and the production team have basically just used that themselves to cover up incompetence. If you don't get taught BODMAS at that age (obviously), then you wouldn't be learning that kind of calculation at that age either (at least i'd have thought that to be common sense). Bungle (talk • contribs) 21:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I was absolutely inscensed when they revealed the answer as 0. It is 100% wrong at any age. 5+3*0==5, and I can prove it in about 6 ways. They are quite right to say "anything multiplied by 0 is 0" but it is the 3 being multiplied by 0, not the (5+3). I don't want an apology for the "ambiguity" of the question, because there is no ambiguity. The answer is 5, end of. Nothing short of an erratum in future repeats will do for me. Please put the discussion back into the article. - Matt, Dover (currently doing a pure methematics degree with a view to teaching). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.203.72.23 (talk) 16:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether BODMAS is taught to 6-year-olds, it was a poor question; tantamount to asking "Who lives at the North Pole?" or "Who puts money under your pillow when you lose a tooth?" Any educated adult would come up with the "wrong" answer. PringleBells-123 (talk) 16:10, 2 January 2008.


 * Teaching children the "wrong" way to do things is called Lies to children - read that article to find out why it's done. I agree that it shouldn't have been asked, though. 90.197.207.58 (talk) 08:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Are you smarter than a ten year old.jpg
File:Are you smarter than a ten year old.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Choice of Questions and Answers by the children
There is clearly something very questionable about this show. I have watched it a number of times and have noticed that the children almost always agree on the answer, even when the question is vague, and there are clearly multiple interpretations. This is far too coincidental not to have been the result of some contrivance. For example on the show broadcast on 12 January 2008, a question was "What kind of animal is a Woodlouse". I understood immediately that it was asking for the answer 'crustacean', but I would be very surprised if an average 10 year old knew what a crustacean was; even if they did, your average 10 year old would probably have thought it was some kind of shellfish. The answers given by the children were all (apart from one child) spelled correctly (another rather unbelievable coincidence). In my experience, children's answers might have ranged from non-scientific terms like "minibeast", "creepy-crawly" through "Insect"(incorrect), to "segmented", "carapaced", right up to the correct answer, "crustacean"

On a previous occasion I noticed the following: In a spelling question, the question was (I think) "How many i's in the word definitely?". Now this is not a difficult question; however, the child who had been chosen answered "tow" (sic). I find it rather incredible that a child who could work out that there were two i's in a complex word could not spell the word 'two'.

Thirdly there is the well known example referred to above, in which the rules of arithmetic were broken by the producers in providing the answer. If the children were all really "smart" and had not seen the questions beforehand, then at least one of them would have obtained the correct answer.

I do not know on what basis the producers of this programme choose their questions, but they are certainly NOT based on any National Curriculm knowledge. For example on the 13th January 11am edition with Dic & Dom, the Age 8 question in mental arithmetic was to calculate the mean of six numbers. The National Numeracy strategy only includes mean at Year 6 (age 10). In the same programme the Age 8 Religion question was "What was the religion of Mary 1?" Clearly this is both nothing to do with the RE curriculum, nor would this be an historical fact that an average 8 year old would be expected to be taught at school. A person with a suspicious frame of mind might venture to suggest that the programme could be configured as follows: the children would either given the questions in advance, and asked to research them with parents, friends etc., or even to suggest that children are given the questions AND answers and asked to learn them.

Clearly as I have no evidence for suggesting this, I would never make such a claim, especially since I have searched the web on this programme, and have not found any website which suggests that any sort of fraudulent behaviour is occurring. I was however wondering whether other contributors to this article knew of any source which had undertaken some sort of debunking of this show. It seems to me that not only is it the worst kind of entertainment, which attempts to make adults look stupid, and children look intelligent, but that it completely misunderstands the intelligence of a 10-year old. The average 'smart' 10 year old will come up with all sorts of interesting and unpredictable answers; they will certainly not conform to the kind of answers that game show producers require in order to make this show viable. TonyFleet (talk) 21:42, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


 * This show is RIDICULOUS. They consistently ask questions that ten year olds would never know in a million years. Yet they ALL consistently know the answers! They are obviously coached with the answers in the day or so before the show, and the real test is if they can remember what they have been recently told. Use your common sense people, even ultra bright kids can only know what they are taught and these kids have far too much of a broad general knowledge to be feasible.
 * C'mon they are TEN years old and have knowledge of events and topics from decades before they were even born and not just vague knowledge, but they can recite names and dates! LUDICROUS! Johnbiddle (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a reminder: This is not a discussion forum for talking about the show; it is a talk page to discuss the encyclopedia article about the show. --Lquilter (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Although I may have been guilty for starting this thread, I maintain that this IS a valid discussion point. What is clear is that (a) the Questions are NOT "National Curriculum Knowledge" whch would be routinely taught in Primary Schools, and (b) the answers given by children exhibit a uniformity which would not normally be expected from even very intelligent 10 year olds. This means that there is something 'not quite right' about the claims and the title of the show. I was asking whether or not there had been any sources debunking the show. I actually found a discussion of some of the issues (very guarded) in the timesonline article :http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article2576473.ece ; I suppose I was asking whether or not there were other sources which had analysed questions and responses systematically, if so, the issues (a) & (b) could be raised in the article itself. TonyFleet (talk) 10:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:10yearoldnz.PNG
File:10yearoldnz.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot (talk) 23:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Series 3: Are You Smarter Than YOUR 10 Year Old
I just got an email from the production company, who are currently looking for contestants for series 3. Here is an extract from the email:

"We have an important update for the new series of Are You Smarter than Your 10 Year Old?. For the 2009 series, we’re looking for contestants to take on a 10 year old relative plus 4 of his or her school friends. This relative can be your son/daughter/nephew/niece/grandchild/sister/brother but they must be 10 years old.

The other exciting news is that you could now be in with a chance of winning up to £1million!" Zestos (talk) 16:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Clarifications of the rules please
The text says this:

"Peek: The player is shown their classmate's answer and may choose whether to go along with it or not - however, they must answer the question upon using this cheat."

I'm sure on today's Sky 3 episode they said to the contestant something like "remember, once you've peeked you still have the option to drop out if you wish", and if this is in fact what was said, it goes against the text above. Can anyone confirm please? Nzseries1 (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll clarify this now in the article (and a couple of other things I've spotted), but officially it works as thus: Peek is to look at the classmate's answer but there is no obligation to go with it.  Copy is taking whatever the classmate has written.  In series 1 this is "locked in" after seeing it, but in the 2nd series appears to have morphed into a "lock it in" before seeing it.  The Save is automatic as and when it's needed.  No cheats are available for the £50k/£250k question regardless of how many, if any, are available by that point.  Any contestant can drop out at any point they wish.    NKTP (talk) 21:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

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