National History Bee

[pqr]

http://www.history.com/shows/history-bee

 

Is it just me or did the questions seem rather poorly chosen and not really what I would expect either in topic or level?

[klmama]

Where did you find/see questions? Am I missing something?

[pqr]

Caught it on the History Channel, I think.

 

There were questions about the movie "Back to the Future" very benign art history questions, one on Whitewater and several others that I thought were out of place or simply not of the level for a national competition.

 

Now the National Geography Bee, that was something very different.

[pqr]

My boys are doing quite well yelling out the answers they know :)

 

 

That is what bothered me the most; as a household we were running about 95% and that should not happen on a national level bee. I promise you that we do not hit those numbers on the spelling bee or the geography bee.

[dirty ethel rackham]

I thought it was a very "soft" competition. I watched the finals of the National Geography Bee and knew maybe one answer. Many of the questions on the History Bee were easy, even in the finals. I knew most of them. Many pop culture questions that would not be familiar to the kids. It felt more like Trivial Pursuit than a History Bee. But, then again, look at who sponsored it. There was one about 2 R-rated movies from the 80s. I was highly annoyed at that one. These were middle-school aged kids who would not have seen them.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

I think the questions were targeted towards a specific age group of adults that they thought would be watching the Bee and would want to "play along." Sort of like watching Jeopardy. I don't think it did the kids competing any good to have such silly questions nor did it do anything to promote history education or curiosity about historical topics. I also thought the blatant use of their network's "stars" to ask questions was ridiculous and made the show look like less of a competition or serious scholarship mechanism and more like one giant ad for the network. Shame the History Bee can't find a more serious sponsor or at least one that shows some respect for the serious study those kids put in to prepare.

[dirty ethel rackham]

I think the questions were targeted towards a specific age group of adults that they thought would be watching the Bee and would want to "play along." Sort of like watching Jeopardy. I don't think it did the kids competing any good to have such silly questions nor did it do anything to promote history education or curiosity about historical topics. I also thought the blatant use of their network's "stars" to ask questions was ridiculous and made the show look like less of a competition or serious scholarship mechanism and more like one giant ad for the network. Shame the History Bee can't find a more serious sponsor or at least one that shows some respect for the serious study those kids put in to prepare.

 

I agree totally. But, this was the first History Bee and it was sponsored by the History Channel. So, I guess it makes sense to them that they did it that way. But it still cheapened the event. And Al Roker was more like a game show host than a scholarship competition emcee.

[angela in ohio]

You can take practice tests here and see some questions.

[pqr]

Al Roker was more like a game show host than a scholarship competition emcee.

 

Roker was pathetic, he displayed all the personality of a wet doorknob; this coupled with the fact that the kids were several orders of magnitude more intelligent than he was made his presence a real negative.