A couple of months back I was watching “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”--one of the more enjoyable game shows in recent memory. The premise is that the contestants should be able to answer the questions, since it’s stuff we learned during or prior to the fifth grade--nothing deceptively clever or arcane; just facts and information, history, science, grammar, and current geography. The questions get harder as you move from the first to the fifth grade, with correspondingly higher monetary prizes.

This night the contestant made it to the $1-million level. If you win at this point, you get the million; if you lose you go back to a measly $25,000 and you have to face the camera and admit that you’re not smarter than a fifth grader.

The question was, “Who was the longest reigning monarch of England?” Well, I knew this answer hands down. Oh, how I wished I was on that stage. I’d become a millionaire. I would be smarter than a fifth grader. I was absolutely sure of it. Except… I was dead wrong. I would have lost thousands of dollars and I would have had to make the humiliating admission as to my diminished level of smartness.