How do you measure intelligence?

Last night I watched a show that pitted an adult against a handful of 5th graders. The adult was the contestant and had to answer 5th grade questions from a variety of topics. If the adult cannot answer then they must state to the viewing audience that they are not as smart as a 5th grader.

Let me tell you, "I am not as smart as a 5th grader"

Now I know that I have knowledge that goes beyond the 5th grade level but I was truly stumped by some of the questions. Take for instance, "what is a pronoun"? Now I know that at some point in my life (5th grade) that I could answer that question with ease. I had to look it up!!! Yup, a very humbling thing. How about "what is the closest star to the earth"? Tough one for me. As my mind went through the thought process, is the moon a star? Is it the north star? Not so easy for me. Here's one for all you math whizzes, "how many sides does a trapezoid have"?

Now for all of you who are reading this and know the answers I commend you and salute your knowledge retention. For those of you who are like me I will provide you with the answers.

A. A pronoun: any of a small set of words in a language that are used as substitutes for nouns. An example: John gave Mary a new coat. In this example the pronoun her could replace Mary, so it would become: John gave her a new coat. The pronoun her could replace Mary if the reader had been introduced to Mary in previous text and it would clearly be understood that her was talking about Mary.

B. The closest star to the earth is the sun.

C. A tapezoid has 4 sides.


Mr. Big update: I feel guilty and not for the what should be the obvious reasons (he's married). No I feel guilty because since he agreed to help with my paper I have done zero, zilch, nada. He on the other hand has already started reading the annual report and making notes. Yikes! I guess he's not a procrastinator like me. :-)