With the exception of the removal of the Fastest Finger First question, none of the changes introduced in the previous season in 2007 were carried over to this season, which moved closer to the game's original format.
Two of the lifelines were changed slightly for this season - Phone A Friend became Ask A Teacher, which allowed the student contestants to call one of three teachers from their school, who were kept in separate studios to stop them asking other people or using a search engine or books to find the answer, and Ask The Audience became Ask The Students, where a group of 100 students from the contestants' school (where a Nine Network personality was also present) voted with electronic keypads while they watched the episode's recording, with the results displayed on a laptop screen at the school rather than through the usual screen graphics.