Make the Grade

"(insert opening question) If you can answer this, and a bunch of other questions, maybe you've got what it takes to... Kid Audience: MAKE... THE... GRADE! And here's your (space age) host, a man who (insert comical line), Lew Schneider/Robb Edward Morris!"

An educational game show where kids get a chance to test their knowledge.

Main Game
Three contestants who sat in colored desks ( red, green & blue ) have to answer questions. They faced a game board which was a 7x7 grid; above the board were seven grade levels & on the left side were seven subjects (originally a mixture of school subjects & general knowledge; later six school subjects & one elective); the 49 squares consisted of icons representing those subjects. The player in control picked a square by grade level & subject; when a question mark (?) was exposed, the host read a question to all three players. The first player to buzz-in with a correct answer won the question and captured the square which now appeared in the same color as that player's desk, but instead of earning points, you also lit up icons on your own score card. There were 14 icons with the same education levels & subjects as on the board, so the purpose of the game was to answer at least one question for every subject and education level. The first player to light up all the icons, or to have the most when time is up in round two is the winner. The way to win is to capture squares on the board in any pattern; you can go diagonally one way or the other, or complete one complete row and one complete column. However, since there is competition, most of the time, the typical way to win was to try to answer as many questions as possible.

Wild Cards
While there were question spaces up on the board, it had other spaces as well which could really effect the game.

TAKE - Player gets to take a space from another player.

LOSE - Player loses a space they claimed.

FREE - Player in control of board gets the space free.

FIRE - A fire drill space, all contestants compete in a physical challenge and whoever finishes first gets their choice at which desk they wish to seat in, followed by the second place player and then the third. This could really tip the scales should someone with very few spaces finishes first and gains the lead.

The winner of the main game won $500 and gets to go to the "Honors Round" for more cash and (later in the run) a grand prize.

Honors Round
In the "Honors Round", the winning contestant had to answer seven questions in 45 seconds or less. To start the wining contestant received a choice of three categories. Each category was divided into seven school subjects, the player's job was to answer questions, one from each of the seven subjects under the chosen category and get them all correct before the 45 second time limit runs out. A big prize is won if completed successfully. For the first season the prize was $1,000, and later it was changed to $600 and a grand prize which was always a trip back to Universal Studios in Florida where the show was taped.

Extra Time at the End of the Show
Whenever there was extra time at the end of show, there would be an activity going to fill-in the remaining seconds.

Lew's Extra Time
For the first part of Lew's tenture, Lew would go out into the public (mostly into malls) and ask general people a series of questions.

University Round
Later during the Lew Schneider run, the winning contestant would play a special round called the "University Round" where that player would be asked a series of questions unplayed from previous games. The first question was worth $50, the second worth $100, $200 for the third, $500 for the fourth, and the final question worth $1,000. If the winning contestant missed a question at any point, he/she lost the money from that round, and not the money nor prize from the main game or "Honors Round", which was why the contestant had the option to stop after each correct answer.

Robb's Extra Time
During Robb's tenure as host, whenever there was some time to fill after the "Honors Round", Robb would go out into the audience and ask them a series of questions, again from past games though not always unused. Correct answers from them won a small prize, like a t-shirt or other goodies.

Music
Edd Kalehoff

Links
Jay Anton's Rules for Make the Grade

Make the Grade Rules @ Loogslair.net

Another Make the Grade Rules Page