be a contestant on Jeopardy!

I took the West Coast online test at 8:00 PM last night. It was very fast-paced; 50 questions, 15 seconds per question.

You had to read the question and category, type in your answer and hit “submit” before the 15 second time limit expired. If you hit “submit” early you were instantly transferred to the next question, so in a way it paid to hold off if you had the answer to give your brain a few extra seconds of rest.

The questions were all from different categories, so it was a little tough not to have the category primed in memory for series of questions.

2 or 3 of the questions I had no idea on, and a few more I guessed. It wasn’t clear from the instructions if there was a penalty for guessing incorrectly (as there is in actual Jeopardy).

Since the answers were all text entry, I’d assume they have one pass of automated scoring, and then some humans look results over for spelling irregularities that would count as a correct answer but the computers wouldn’t catch.

I’m very curious to see how I scored. They say it is random chance on who gets called for a follow-up interview, but I’m sure the “random selection” is from a subset of the highest scores.

I’ve signed up for the West Coast online test next Thursday. Not sure what to expect exactly, but it will be fun to give it a try. As long as they stay away from categories like Poetry and English Literature I should be fine. ;-)

Provided my short-term memory holds out, I’m going to take the online test next week. I do well playing at home, but that doesn’t always translate into doing well on the show. (There are categories I suck at, especially American ones for obvious reasons, if the online test focusses on these I don’t stand much chance. But, hey, it’s better than what others have done … )

Took the online test a while back, and I’m pretty confident that I did rather well. So we’ll see what happens.

I took the online test back in January and received my email invitation to the in-person audition last week! I think the toughest part of this process will be coming up with the five conversation starters. These are the little bits of information Alex uses during the interviews, and you have to have them at the audition. I’ve still got a few weeks to figure out what’s interesting about me.

fyi: the secret of Jeopardy! success is all in the wrist action… You have to time it JUST RIGHT so you don’t buzz in too early and lock yourself out (nor do you want to buzz in too late… doh!)

Darn it – I did not find out/register in time to take the online contestant test. I’ll have to study up over the next few months so that I’m well prepared when it comes around again.

See, I go to CMU, where tuition is roughly the same as the cost of a space shuttle. If I could win at college Jeopardy, that would be a big help. I’m not really that smart, but I tend to make up for that with massive amounts of sarcasm, which has worked pretty well for me so far. Besides, it doesn’t matter who’s the best, it’s who wants it most that’ll win, right?

And no, I don’t actually believe that, but blissful naivete seems easier than actually learning things.

Signed up for the on-line contestant search to occur this Tuesday! Wish me luck!

I’ve already been on one game show….and I sucked! Gotta redeem myself .