The Set Up
Back in February I took the Jeopardy online contestant test. I’ve been taking the test annually for three years now, and each time have generally felt pretty good about how I did, but nothing has ever come of it. Until…
A month ago I got an email from the Jeopardy contestant department inviting me to an audition in Boston on May 5. I had chosen Boston as an audition venue because there weren’t any options within easy driving distance and because I had hopes of combining an audition trip with a chance to visit old friends and haunts. Unfortunately, school and other obligations forced me to make it a hit and run trip; I was in Boston for less than 24 hours, most of it spent sleeping or auditioning.
The Audition
I had googled for information about a Jeopardy audition, so I knew a little about what to expect, but there was still quite a bit that surprised me. Aside from the computer and projector used for the mock games, it was a pretty low tech operation. The contestant information forms we filled out looked like 15th generation mimeographs and had spaces marked “Office Use Only”, suggesting they weren’t destined for transcription into a computer. One of the first things the contestant coordinators did was take a head shot of each of us – using an instant camera. Even the signaling system they used was pretty basic: press the button, light goes on. No beeps or buzzers, and no lock out functionality.
After having us fill out the forms and getting our pictures, the contestant coordinators sat us down and talked to us. While they did use this time to tell us a little bit about what to expect from the day (and from the show if we made it that far), it was clear that their main purpose was to put us at ease and get us in the right mindset for the audition; they emphasized repeatedly that they were looking for contestants who looked like they were having fun. Here, and for the entirety of the audition, the coordinators were great. They were funny and encouraging and just projected a general air of “good at my job” that I always find reassuring.
After the introductory spiel (and a DVD welcome from Alex Trebek), they put up a Jeopardy board for us to look at. Here and during the “real” mock game later, the board had the six categories with single Jeopardy values, but only the top three clues in each column. There were no buzzers at this stage; everybody in the room was participating, with people just raising their hands to answer. The coordinators used this time to let us review and practice Jeopardy conventions and clue types: responses as questions, “ant”swers in quotes, wordplay clues, etc. After clearing the practice board, we moved on to the written test. It was 50 clues, all in different categories, projected one at a time, with eight seconds to answer each. Though the clues were in answer form, responses did not have to be in the form of a question.
After the test, they collected our answer sheets and all of our documentation: info sheets, the instant photo they took earlier, five anecdotes about ourselves they’d asked us to bring. Then the coordinators disappeared for about fifteen minutes, presumably to collate our information and/or grade the tests. We potentials got to chat a little during this time, mostly about the test. I actually found out more about the others later on, during the personality interviews, and I kind of wish I had had more opportunities to talk with them, as there were some interesting people there: a few teachers, a few Harvard grads, a couple people who had auditioned before, an Onion writer who had had a piece published just the previous week, an acquaintance of Ken Jennings. There wasn’t really time for us to bond as a cohort, but I would certainly feel some measure of May 5 at 11:30 Boston Audition Group pride if I recognized one of my co-auditioners doing well on the show.
Once the coordinators came back, we started the mock games. While it was three players head to head and using signaling devices, it wasn’t really a competition. There was no scoring, the coordinators clearly tried to give all three players a chance to answer a few clues and pick categories, and they weren’t above offering hints if a clue seemed to be a stumper. The games only lasted 15 or so clues, with categories emptied on the board being immediately replaced. Then came the personality interviews. These were longer than the interview with Alex on the show and more free form. No one was embarrassingly dull or inarticulate, but there were a couple of people who very personable and smooth. One of them was the guy who said he was on his third or fourth audition, though, so who knows exactly what they are looking for. After the interviews were over for the last game, the audition wrapped up very quickly. They thanked us for coming, told us how to let them know if our contact information or availability changed, and sent us on our merry way.
And Now?
I am in the Jeopardy contestant pool for the next 18 months. For all I know, based on the audition I may sitting on the bottom of the pool, holding an armload of cinder blocks, but at least I’m in there. Actually, I feel pretty good about the audition. I think I did well on the written test, which I’ve read is the biggest factor in contestant selection. I don’t think I embarrassed myself in either the mock game or the personality interview. I was happy to discover that while playing the game, my focus was on playing the game – not impressing the coordinators or not looking stupid or winning money. I’m sure it’s different with real scores, real buzzers, and real money, but I’m more confident now that even then I could trust my brain to focus on the question at hand. I do wonder if my southern accent will work against me; whenever I travel north I am reminded that people find it comment worthy, and I don’t typically notice Jeopardy players with strong accents. But I don’t have much of an ear for accents anyway, so I may have just filtered them out. On the plus side, I’m not only in the pool for the regular show, I’m also in for next year’s teacher tournament, so that double dip may help my chances.
In any case, I’m going to try to spent the next 18 months preparing as if I am going on the show. I’ve definitely gotten dumber in the last 15 years, and I need to reverse that trend. While I do respectably playing along at home, I have some major soft spots when it comes to history, geography, sports, and fine arts. I’m already working my way through Smarter By Sunday and Condensed Knowledge, but I really need to find some domain specific surveys that emphasize context and connections. I can memorize chunks of almanac style data, but it requires frequent refreshing and doesn’t lend itself to fast, fluent access. I also plan to spend a lot of time with Sporcle in the months ahead; maybe the ninth or tenth time I do the “Countries of Africa” quiz I’ll start to get more than half of them. I may also try writing some quizzes, as I well know that teaching something is the best way to learn in. And of course J! Archive is an invaluable resource, especially since I’ve screen scraped the whole thing and now have database of 200,000 old Jeopardy clues. So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
