«Why should I memorize things I can just look up.»
Albert Einstein
In quiz shows like «Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?», the participants win prizes by being able to answer factual questions. I get the appeal. As a member of the (tv) audience, you can remember or guess yourself. And you might even imagine you might have won — if you only had been on that chair (ignoring the limelight).
But these quiz shows ask for «facts», often rather trivial pieces of information.
I wonder how a quiz show would fare that goes for the ability to reason. A show that provides «facts» and the task of the participant is to work out the solution to a difficult and/or complex problem. To work with limited information under time pressure. And hey, it could also address frequent misconceptions participants might fall in.
Might be worth a trial. Esp. if participants can compete alone or in groups. Would be interesting if one person would beat groups of people.
Hmm, but it’s likely harder to sell to an audience, as remembering/guessing takes less effort and few people have a high need for cognition. But it might show more … relevant skills today. After all, information is easy to come by, but using it well — not so much.
BTW, I think there were shows like this (not sure about today, haven’t had a TV in decades), for example, students competing against professors in science problems.
Hmm … might be interesting.
