Miss America, Lauren Nelson, is smarter than a fifth grade

“I’m Lauren Nelson. I’m Miss America, and I am not smarter than a fifth grader.”


That’s what Oklahoma's own Miss America just said on national television as she won $175,000 on the Fox game show, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” But she proved she is smarter than a group of fifth-grade opponents.

She won $175,000 by answering a math question correctly and then realizing she probably didn't know the correct answer to the next question worth $300,000.


The $175,000 question was a fourth grade math question: What is the greatest common factor of 12 and 36?

"I know this. I'm confident," Nelson said. Then, slightly tilting her tiara-adorned head and wavering just a second, she said, "I'm going to go with my gut and go with 12 and lock it in."


Her opponents, all grade-school children, answered 12, 6, 4 and 4.

"Lauren, I don't know how to tell you this," host Jeff Foxworthy said. "You just won $175,000!"

Nelson, of Lawton, earlier said her mother is a teacher who began grilling Nelson as soon as she learned the blonde was scheduled to go on the game show.

Nelson was uncertain of the answer to the next question: Who said, “Give me liberty or give me death”?

If she gave the wrong answer, her win for the Miss America Organization Scholarship Fund would have dropped to $25,000. She decided not to risk the money by answering with her best guess: Alexander Hamilton.

Foxworthy said she was smart not to make that guess and lose most of the money. He said the answer is: Patrick Henry.

Nelson laughed and walked through the curtains as the children on the show stood up and gave the official, nobody-does-it-like-this Miss America wave.

The show tests an adult’s knowledge against – you guessed it – a fifth grader’s. Contestants are asked questions ranging from first to fifth-grade level.