Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? is a television game show format based on asking grade-school level questions to adults. The show first aired on FOX in the United States on February 27, 2007. The show has since been replicated in several countries; some under the same title, and some under modified titles. The first season of the show ranked 28th in the Nielsen Ratings, with an average of 12.7 million viewers per episode.

Each game is played by a single contestant who earns money incrementally based on a payout ladder by answering simple trivia questions, with the game themed as a school quiz. The game relies on the fact that an adult would not know the information generally taught in elementary grade school, due to the fact it is rarely used in adult life; therefore, the show is essentially a test to see how much an adult has retained since graduating elementary school. The show also derives its humor by occasionally displaying the contestant's educational attainment, implying that in spite of that, they struggle to answer some questions.

The contestant is presented and chooses from a set of ten subject and grade level question topics. The question is then revealed. Some questions are multiple choice or true/false; others require the contestant to answer without any options.

Each correct answer moves the contestant up a payout ladder with a final bonus fifth grade question moving the contestant up one more step to the top prize. At any point up to the final question, the contestant may quit the game after seeing the question. For the final question, the contestant must decide whether to quit after seeing only the subject; if he chooses to see the question, he must answer it.

Kathy Cox, the Superintendent of Schools for the State of Georgia, is the only person to have correctly answered the $1,000,000 question: Who was the longest reigning British Monarch? The answer was Queen Victoria.

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