The $64,000 Question, which began in the 1955, was the first really big television game show. It attracted huge audiences in the United States and everywhere else it was shown. It counted amongst its winners a housewife, an eleven-year-old boy, a jockey, a shoemaker, a policeman and a psychiatrist named Dr Joyce Brothers, who later had her own television programme giving advice to viewers.

The show was really little more than a television version of a 1940s radio programme called The $64 Dollar Question. Contestants who claimed to be experts in particular categories answered questions on their chosen field. Each time they answered a question correctly their money doubled. The more questions they answered, the more money they could potentially win, but the questions got tougher at each level. Players who made it all the way to the $64,000 question could bring an expert along with them for help, though. For the highest level questions, players were escorted to 'Isolation Booths' by pretty assistants.

Inside the booths, the contestants could not hear the nervous audience's gasps and whispered speculation about the answers. The TV cameras always focused on the players' anxious faces as they tried to find the answer to the question. If they did manage to answer correctly, they came back to the show the following week to answer a question at the next highest level. There was only one question per contestant in each episode of the programme and this meant that there was always a mixture of veterans who had survived for many months and inexperienced contestants who were just starting out at the lowest level.

The game began with stakes of just one dollar. Shiny new Cadillacs were the consolation prizes for players who lost at the $8,000 level and for those poor $64,000 losers, there was a $4,000 prize to take the sting out of coming so close, but not close enough. Eventually, the producers made it possible to win more than the usual $64,000 and the best players could go on to compete in the shows even bigger money companion, called The $64,000 Challenge. The eleven-year-old contestant appeared on both and won $192,000 for his efforts.

The $64,000 Question set the pattern for countless other television game shows but was eventually taken off the air in 1958. It had real people winning incredible sums of money while audiences tested their own knowledge and intelligence and, more importantly, empathised with the triumphs and tragedies of each of the contestants. In that sense, it was also the predecessor of the reality shows that many people still love to watch today.

Q.1 Now choose the best option (a, b, c or d) that answers each question.

(12 marks; 1.5 mark each)

1. What kind of people were successful on The $64,000 Question? Answer

A. People who were experts of some kind.

B. Mainly women.

C. Mainly men and boys.

D. All sorts of people.

2. What differences were there between the $64 Question and the $64,000 Question? Answer

A. The $64,000 Question was shown on television.

B. On the $64,000 Question, the players said what kinds of questions they wanted to answer.

C. On the $64,000 Question, the players were not eliminated if they didn't answer correctly.

D. On the $64,000 Question, the players could bring someone with them to give them advice.

3. Why did the contestants have to go into isolation booths? Answer

A. So that the TV cameras could show how worried they looked.

B. So that they could concentrate properly.

C. So that they wouldn't hear the answer to the question.

D. So that they could consult the person they had brought with them in private.

4. What happened if a contestant couldn't answer the $64,000 question correctly? Answer

A. They were asked another question that was less difficult.

B. They got a smaller amount of money to make them feel better.

C. They were given a dollar and told not to come back again.

D. They had a chance to win a luxury Cadillac car.

5. In this show, the questions Answer

.

A. proved too difficult to answer by the contestants

B. tested the contestants knowledge of a field familiar to them

C. could not be answered without an expert that they brought with them

D. were tricky and depended entirely on the contestants memory

6. What does 'both' in line 38 refer to? Answer

A. Two television networks.

B. Two questions.

C. Two television programmes.

D. Two prizes.

7. What does the writer of the article think about the $64,000 Question? Answer

A. It was a good thing that it didn't continue for very long.

B. It is to blame for the many reality shows that are on TV now.

C. People won too much money and the questions were too hard.

D. It had many good qualities.

8. Which is the best title for this passage? Answer

A. Where all that reality began.

B. The longest running TV show.

C. TV was really this bad once.

D. An eleven-year-old winner.