ANSWER: What is, "I flubbed it, Alex."
I just clean forgot the first night and so took it the second night (last night). They run three tests over three nights when the online test for wannabee contestants is offered.
There are fifty questions and I got just under forty correct.
I knew people post the tests (without answers) on YouTube after they are run. So I found Tuesday night's test and took it and I got 45 out of 50 on that test. That test was not difficult.
I saw people on message boards were saying the same thing. They largely said they scored way better on the first test (taking it without official scoring, after the fact) than last night's.
I do think the second test was much harder since the first test tended to stay in the areas of "general knowledge," whereas the second test went for some very specific cultural mentions that were either hit or miss in your life.
It really smarted that I missed the first question out of the gate. Correct answer: Marie Kondo. I remembered hearing her quote about throwing away things that do not bring you joy. But it was such a blip on the cultural radar for me. And the other ones that got me were things like the producer of a show I never watched and the name of a video game I never played.
Of course, I missed some questions that were just fair game general knowledge. And there were at least two questions that I knew the answers to as soon as the fifteen second time window allowed elapsed and the question disappeared. Thank you, age.
They say nobody outside of the show's production team knows how many answers (minimum) you must get correct to be considered for the show. You hear 35 online and if that's true, I'd at least have made the cut for consideration for sure. But maybe they look at 40 and up. Who knows.
It was an experience and it was sort of fun even with the stress. I was sure there was going to be an African capital I could not remember but that never happened, at least.
I wonder what the third test will be like tonight. I'll probably take it on the YouTube version after it's posted since you can't take the test more than one time per cycle. Wish they let you take all three and then just took your best score. If so, I would be sitting pretty. But then I think I read about eighty thousand people take the test and they only pull 2500 people from the qualifiers. And then you have to test out okay with the auditions. So there's lots of ways NOT to make it on Jeopardy.
I tend to be able to answer two-thirds or more of the board on any given night. Usually, it's sports that kill me. And I'm remarkably ignorant about most things Canadian, a subject area which (not surprisingly) comes up quite a bit on the show. Give me science, literature, words, languages, art, or history and I'm happy.
But who knows. Maybe I'd get there and find the working of the buzzer defeats me. Life is full of funny little surprises like that.
And what if you get there and lose the first time out. I wonder if that's a worse Jeopardy experience than never getting to play the game with Mr. Trebek mere feet away.
I am in complete awe of how Alex Trebek is handling his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. I really can't imagine a braver response and if you've seen recent interviews by him it only makes you love the guy more. Have you ever seen him be mean or slight anyone even once through the years? Trebek is the Buddha.
I don't really watch the show to see how much money people win. That's the least interesting thing to me. I watch the show because I'm an information junkie.
I probably should have tried out when I was much younger and quicker on my reflexes. But then I read as much now as I did when I was in my twenties, if not more. It was the messy years between here and there when I was actually too monomaniacal in my focus, I think. Now I'm back to being interested in everything again. The world is a fascinating place to be reborn every day. As I age, something inside me feels as though it is growing younger every day. I wish the cells outside my brain shared that sentiment.
No comments:
Post a Comment