Child Genius

[AnAmericanInDisney]

What the..? What happened Ryan? I am on the road and tuned in late.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Anybody still watching?

I just watched round 5. There were eight kids, so they're down to six now.

(Spoilers below.)

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I'm not really sorry to see Tanishq go, even though I was surprised. I think his mom went too far this week when she challenged the judges.

I was really surprised they all missed the triangle question. (The kind where you count the triangles in a tangle, and some are built from more than one smaller triangle.) It's such a common type of question in puzzle books and the like, that I would have thought they'd all done them multiple times. But I think they were rushing due to the time factor.

I like the girl they've just started focusing on. She seemed so genuinely pleased to get into the top three.

 

[DisneyLuver2013]

I'm rooting for Vanya and Graham. Both seem like such sweet kids!

On the other hand, I hope that Katherine loses. Every time another child gets a wrong answer, the camera pans over and she has a smirk on her face. But I can't put the blame on her - her parent's seem to be the exact same way...

 

[AnAmericanInDisney]

I'm rooting for Graham. He seems like a naturally intelligent kid, and he and his mom are surprised when he does well. I do still like Ryan, although the show seems to be playing up the tiger mom angle. He and his brother appear to love each other alot. Yeji is cute, too.

My husband likes Benyamin, because his dad is so cool.

I think the kids struggled so much with the triangle problem because they were under a time constraint, but those are standard logic/Math problems.

 

[SMD]

Anybody still watching?

I just watched round 5. There were eight kids, so they're down to six now.

(Spoilers below.)

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.
.
.
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I'm not really sorry to see Tanishq go, even though I was surprised. I think his mom went too far this week when she challenged the judges.

I was really surprised they all missed the triangle question. (The kind where you count the triangles in a tangle, and some are built from more than one smaller triangle.) It's such a common type of question in puzzle books and the like, that I would have thought they'd all done them multiple times. But I think they were rushing due to the time factor.

I like the girl they've just started focusing on. She seemed so genuinely pleased to get into the top three.

The triangle question didn't surprise me. They have a time limit, and probably strategized not to spend a lot of time on that one. Yeji is the girl that got the background piece this week. I really like her and hope she does well. I try to tell myself that it's the editing that makes Katherine so grating, but yea, I also don't think they're putting all those words in her mouth in the interviews. Her father was grinning when Tanishq was eliminated and I thought that was poor taste from poor sports. I'd like to shake Ryan's parents until they leave their kid alone. Since I started typing this, Vanya has had 2 sips of water.

 

[dismomtfj]

Her father was grinning when Tanishq was eliminated and I thought that was poor taste from poor sports.

Given the grief they caused them and their other very public issues, I really don't blame them. I would like to think it was something I would not do, but we don't know what other drama has gone on behind the scenes either.

 

[Pembo]

Take a drink of water....love this show. Haven't watched this week's episode yet but I love Graham. He seems the most normal. Ryan is my favorite kid. His mom is NUTS! That said my son has a friend who is 100% Indonesian. He moved here when he was 3. His parents, nicest people, but they are always on him to study more. He has to take AP classes. He was getting a B and they wouldn't allow him to socialize at all so he could study. I like this kid ALOT but he definitely feels the pressure to achieve academically. His real passions are singing and art. He is very talented. But I doubt his parents will approve if he tries to pursue those after high school.

 

[Susan Reynolds]

I do not find Catherine sweet. She is so smug. Yeti is the sweet one.

 

[Swan4]

Didn't anyone notice that in Episode 5, when Graham gets the question with the squares, although his answer is incorrect, the "correct" answer the judges give is still wrong? If I remember correctly, he found 9, 11 is supposedly the correct answer, but in reality there are 17 (could have been 16, I don't have the figure in front of me anymore)?

 

[Rylee]

I wonder how often Vanya has to "tinkle."

I'm tired of Graham's, Wow, I'm shocked at how smart I am, routine.

I was sad to see Ryan go. I was hoping he'd win, in spite of his parents.

My current favorite is Yeji, followed by Vanya but I think Katherine will probably win.

 

[AnAmericanInDisney]

Ryan broke my heart. Poor kid is just as smart as any of those kids who are left. I think Catherine will win (unfortunately) and Graham will be the next to go. I really like Graham and will be sorry to see him go.
Three of the four remaining have stay-at-home moms. Coincidence?

 

[PollyannaMom]

I do not find Catherine sweet. She is so smug. Yeti is the sweet one.

I definitely like Yeji. She didn't really get featured until the middle rounds, but since then I've been rooting for her.

I did think Katherine was sweet at the beginning; she was so quiet. But now I agree that they're protraying her as kind of smug. But I figure they're all just kids, and the camera people and the editors are showing us just the bits they want to, so you never know.

The one thing that really bothered me this week was the comment about how Ryan lost out to the girls because he's a boy. I know it used to be girls who got left out of these sort of things, and the media has been working hard to correct that, but I think the campaign has gone too far in the other direction. Most of the boys I know, DS included, are growing up thinking girls will automatically do better in school, that the girls will always win "boys vs. girls" story lines on TV, etc. I wish we could find a real balance instead of just going back and forth between two extremes.

Does anyone know what the format will be next week? It sounds like it's just one last round.

 

[bookgirl]

Spoilers............














Holy Cow can't belive it. Katherine gets knocked out in the first round. Her father was an embarrassment. I mean who competes in these kinds of things (or takes any test now a days) and doesn't know you pass on any thing that is going to eat your time and answer as many questions as possible. He just kept going on how it wasn't fair to her that other people passed on the hard questions and she tried to answer them. I do feel a little bad that I didn't care that she was eliminated but I really wanted one of the others to win.

I was sure what he was going to contest was that when they picked for placement Graham was supposed to go third but he went last.

Anyway I'm would have been glad had any of the remaining three won but I think Vanna really did deserve to win. I think Graham was the most naturally talented, and Yegi was the most well rounded, but Vanna was the best competitor. She was smart, had good study habits and had a father who understood teaching strategy. I also liked the parents they all seemed happy that their kids were in the finals and would have been happy with the results no matter what they were.

 

[SMD]

I think that Graham went before Vanya, but it was just edited out of order to make it more dramatic. Otherwise they would have only shown 8 of Vanya's correct answers before we knew the outcome. I didn't think that Katherine's father's argument was very strong. Vanya spent just as much time on the card memorization question, she missed that question, and she still answered the most correctly, twice as many as Katherine. I wish they hadn't shown that part and just edited it out. I liked the part at the very end where the kids compared answers and would rather have seen more of that than the protest. I think that Katherine has probably been the victim of some editing, like appearing to roll her eyes when other kids did well, but she probably actually rolled her eyes in response to something else. But mn, they got her rolling her eyes tonight while she was clapping with everyone else. It seems like if everyone is giving a round of applause, it might not be appropriate to give a giant eye roll. And her father's body language changed completely during the final round. Maybe they shouldn't have continued to watch. I've read Katherine's Twitter feed and she seems like a nice girl. I hope she and her parents have chilled out now that it's over.

 

[Disney Doll]

Sounds like another annoying show where parents live vicariously through their children.

Basically stage mothers whose kids are smart rather than performers.

 

[jrmasm]

Sounds like another annoying show where parents live vicariously through their children.

Basically stage mothers whose kids are smart rather than performers.

I watched the first episode and it made me really uncomfortable. What an awful concept! Poor kids!

 

[AnAmericanInDisney]

I'm okay with a Vanya win. Her parents seemed really nice, especially her mom, and it looks like they are living a middle class life and could use the money for school. I can relate to that.

If you want to see a competitive kids' show where kids are treated poorly by their parents, watch the golf show. It's publicized abuse- worse than Dance Moms, if you can believe it.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Watched it today. I'm happy for Vanya (and her dad, too. - You could see how proud he was when they announced the winners.) I think Katherine's perfectionism got the better of her, and that's why she wouldn't pass on the time-consuming stuff. Yeji and Graham seemed happy just to have gotten to the final round, and their parents were good sports too. It will be interesting to see how things go for Katherine and Yeji back at school.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Anyone watching the new season?

Who are you rooting for?

 

[justgrace]

ME!! I'm watching the new season! I'm not rooting for anyone yet. It was funny when one of the parent's said that their child handles stress better than most kids, and their kid is the one that was under the table and wouldn't come out to participate in the show! I felt bad for the kid who lost this most recent round. His mom wasn't nice to him at all. He told his dad that his mom said he had a look like he was going to the electric chair and to stop looking so weird!! Poor kid!