TV Game Shows
One of the most fascinating things about television is the size of the audience. A novel can be on the best seller lists with a sale of fewer than 100,000 copies, but a popular TV show might have 70 million TV viewers. TV can make anything or anyone well-known overnight.
This is the principle behind quiz or game shows, which put ordinary people on TV to play a game for prizes and money. A quiz show can make anyone a star, and it can give away thousands of dollars in the U.S. and almost everyone watched them. Charles Van Doren, an English instructor1, became rich and famous after winning money on several shows. He even had a career as a television personality. But one of the losers proved that Charles Van Doren was cheating. It turned out that the show's producers who were pulling the strings2, gave the answers to the most popular contestants3 beforehand4. Why? Because if the audience didn't like the person who won the game, they turned the show off. The result of this cheating was a huge scandal5. based on his story, a movie under the title Quiz Show is on 40 years later.
Charles Van Doren is no longer involved with TV. But game shows are still here, though they aren't taken as seriously. In fact, some of them try to be as ridiculous as possible. There are shows that send strangers on vacation trips together, or that try to cause newly-married couples to fight on TV, or that punish losers by humiliation6 them. The entertainment now is to see what people will do just to be on TV. People still win money, but the real prize is to be in front of an audience of millions.
1. TV can make a beggar world-famous overnight.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
2. The principle behind quiz and game shows is to put ordinary people on TV to play a game for prizes and money.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
3. Prizes and money are usually provided by TV stars and large companies for winners.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
4. One of the TV personalities7, Charles Van Doren was proved to be cheating by persuading the Show's producers to give him the answers beforehand.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
5. The huge scandal of cheating in TV game shows was not exposed until 40 years later in the movie Quiz Show.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
6. Nowadays game shows are not treated as seriously as they used to be.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
7. Winners of present-day TV game shows no longer get money from the shows.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
KEYS: ABCBBAB
