How do quiz shows deal with contestants being ignorant of common subject categories? For example, I’m almost completely ignorant of pop music - it’s just not a sound I generally like - but that’s a common category on quiz shows over here. I’m not talking about a disability like not asking a blind person about paintings. Do quiz shows screen contestants beforehand or is it a case of “Tough”?
If it’s central to the theme of the show, like if it was a show centering on pop music trivia, you wouldn’t be selected as a contestant. If it was just one category of many possible, like pop music just happened to come up as a category on Jeopardy well, sucks to be you if you opponents know more than you about the category.
I suppose if none of the contestants knew jack about the category, they might edit out the segment or even decide not to air the episode, depending on how the producers thought things went.
Some people get creamed by their opponents.
Yes.
I mean, let’s take Jeopardy for example. It’s not as if the producers are only trying to find people who actually know a fair amount about whatever off-the-wall category they might have. But there is a test to get on, and if you’re not good at a common category like pop music or British royalty or geography, you probably won’t make the cut.
You do see examples though of contestants who clearly don’t know… again, continuing the Jeopardy example, I’d say it seems to happen most commonly with sports.
To the general question of “Do game shows screen their contestants beforehand?”, the answer is yes. At least, in the sense that most game shows have some sort of “audition” process that allows the contestant coordinators to pick people who are best suited for the show. As I understand it, it would violate the law for a game show to deliberately exclude a category they knew a particular contestant was weak in, or include one they knew the contestant was strong in. So the pre-screening is fairly general, and there is very limited contact between the contestant coordinators and the people who write the questions.
Jeopardy! is the only one I can speak about with any authority (and it’s limited authority), since I have been called to audition for it twice. The first step is an online test, which is given once a year and which anyone can take. Based on that, some people are asked to come in for an in-person audition. This usually takes place at a hotel in some large city (which you have to travel to at your own expense).
You go into a conference room with about 30 other people, take another test, and get some instructions in the way Jeopardy! clues are written. Then you go up to the front of the room in groups of three, play a mock game for about five minutes, and then are interviewed briefly. This is largely so they can judge your personality, if you seem comfortable on camera, if you can keep the game moving smoothly (say, pick the next category without going “Um, uh, let’s see, uh, I’ll take, ohhh…”). At that point, if all goes well, you’re in the contestant pool for the next 18 months.
And if you’re like me, you never get called to do the actual show. 
So yes, there is some level of pre-screening. That said, everybody has subject areas that they are strong or weak in, and you’re liable to run into any of them if you actually get onto the show. I, for example, would be hopeless with any pop music category. I just don’t follow contemporary music. If I were actually going to appear on Jeopardy!, I would certainly try to bone up on it, since I know that it’s a category that’s used frequently. But there are a lot of categories, and only so much time, so there’s only so much studying you can do.
Occasionally on Jeopardy!, there are categories in which it’s clear that none of the three contestant have a clue.
Then comes the decision to either leave the category for last and hope you don’t get to it, or blow through it and get it out of the way. I’ve seen panels try both options.
Yep. I can’t remember the category but I’ve seen the contestants not offer up a buzzer through an entire category on Jeopardy.
That must have been: Conjugating Verbs in Hittite. 
But on Jeopardy very often the questions have more than one clue in them. Even if you know nothing about the question itself the question is phrased in a way that you can answer the question anyway. So you might get a pop music question something like “Random pop song X hit number one and president Nixon resigned in this year”. The question can be answered even if you’ve never heard of random pop song X.
Or they ask a question about a category you know nearly nothing about, but if you’ve heard of one thing about the category, that is often the answer. If all you know about sports is that Michael Jordan was a basketball player, just answer Michael Jordan.
We did that sort of thing when playing Trivial Pursuit. (E.g., if it’s a city, say Paris.)
They also often ask non-category questions for a category. Like the category “Baseball.” I’ve seen them ask something like “This actress was married to Joltin’ Joe.” You don’t need to know anything about baseball to answer “Marilyn Monroe.”
I auditioned for Jeopardy on the set, since I was in LA anyway. They gave a paper 50 question test. This seemed to be tough for some people - one guy who was local said he took it as often as they allowed him to and never made it to the next stage. I doubt I got more than 2 or 3 questions wrong.
The survivors of that stage went to another area, where we played a few question sample game and they asked you to tell them what you would do with any prize money.
One guy there had a stammer. He had made it through the test three times and had never been called. I doubt he ever got called.
I got called to be on the show right away, the second week of the new season.
I suspect they are looking for people who are going to come across well on TV - high energy, if not as high as Wheel of Fortune contestants. From my experience with professional kids and real actors I know it is easy to distinguish people who come across as dynamic from those who don’t. (Not saying you aren’t dynamic, but the screen for kids in an open audition was having them say “I love Cheerios.” That was enough.
Maybe they reject people who get too much of one category wrong on the test. Anyhow, you might hit a question in a good category you don’t know or a question in a bad category you do.
When I was on, my Daily Double question was who did the “I’m Too Sexy …” song. That’s something I’d never have known, except that it was used for a dance in a play my daughter was in, so we had gone to buy the CD single. So you never can tell.
Well, when I appeared on*** Jeopardy***!, I had no idea what the categories would be beforehand. Heck, I didn’t even know if or when I’d get to play!
What I mean is, they taped 5 episodes in one day, and they didn’t tell us which episodes we’d be on until the last minute. Ultimately, I was on the 5th and last episode they taped, an episode that would air on a Friday.
None of knew what the categories would be. As it turned out, there was only ONE category that day I considered myself strong in (European Literature) and NONE I considered myself appallingly weak at (Rap Music, Potent Potables…).
All three of us were very good that day (How good? I ended up with $23,000 and I came in LAST!). There were no categories we all sucked at. If there HAD been a topic none of us knew anything about, well, that would have been our tough luck. We’d have avoided picking that category as long as possible, and turned to it only after all others were used up.
Well, as I said in another thread, I figure as soon as they run out of other nondescript middle-aged white guys, I’ll get the call.
I’m a non-descript boring nerdy middle-aged white guy, and after taking/passing their test for 25+ years, they finally called me.
It can happen.