Charles Van Doren vs. the 1994 Quiz Show Dream Team

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In 1956-57, TV game-show audiences were riveted to their sets during Charles Van Doren's 14-week reign on NBC's Twenty-One. The bookish champ became an unlikely national hero -- until it was revealed that he had been fed answers to the show's often obscure questions, a scandal dramatized in the new film Quiz Show. Could today's intellectuals handle actual questions asked of Van Doren? Without cheating? Time put these five to the test:

1. Identify the main Balearic Islands.

-- Vos Savant: "Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza." ((correct))

-- Ambrose: "These were the islands surrounding Atlantis?" ((wrong))

-- Hirsch: "Don't know."

-- Rice Hughes: "Majorca, Ibiza ... "

-- Trebek: "Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza."

2. Identify the character in La Traviata who sings the aria Sempre Libera.

-- Vos Savant: "That's Violetta ((correct)) doing her coloratura number."

-- Ambrose: "Pass."

-- Hirsch: "I don't know, but that seems like a more legitimate question for a game show."

-- Rice Hughes: "Oh, it's the lead -- Violetta."

-- Trebek: "The lead, Violetta."

3. What are the common names for: caries, myopia, missing patellar reflex?

-- Vos Savant: "Ah, I'm skating on thicker ice here. Cavities ((correct)), nearsightedness ((correct)) and I think a missing patellar reflex might indicate what Grandma used to call 'housemaid's knee' ((wrong))."

-- Ambrose: "Sore teeth, can't see, knee jerk ((wrong))."

-- Hirsch: "Dental decay, nearsightedness, no knee reflex ((correct))."

-- Rice Hughes: "Tooth decay, nearsightedness, no reflex. I knew that. I was a biology major."

-- Trebek: "Tooth decay, nearsightedness, the last one has something to do with a knee jerk -- no knee jerk."

4. George Washington appointed the first Secretary of State, Chief Justice, Secretary of War, Attorney General and Postmaster General. Name them.

-- Vos Savant: "Oh, for heaven's sake."

-- Ambrose: "Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Henry Knox I had to look up Edmund Randolph and Samuel Osgood ((all correct))."

-- Hirsch: "Thomas Jefferson ... that's it."

-- Rice Hughes: "Thomas Jefferson ... and the others ... nothing."

-- Trebek: "Thomas Jefferson and John Jay ... No idea on the others."

5. In 1925 the great powers, for the first time in history, surrendered their absolute right to make war. Name the series of treaties and who signed these documents for the following countries: England, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia?*

-- Vos Savant:"The Locarno Pact ((correct)), signed by more countries than you named. But I don't know who officiated."

-- Ambrose: "Kellogg-Briand ((wrong)) ... No wonder they had to cheat. I doubt that there is a single historian in the U.S. who could get this one."

-- Hirsch: "The Locarno Pact. Don't ask me the rest."

-- Rice Hughes: "The Treaty of Versailles, maybe. Something to do with the League of Nations. I know it took place in that vicinity of time."

-- Trebek:"Kellogg-Briand. That's all I know."

*Austen Chamberlain, Aristide Briand, Benito Mussolini, Eduard Benes